


The Heirloom

by keiliss



Series: Future Dreams [5]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works
Genre: F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen, Loneliness, Loss, M/M, Mystery, Premonition, minor ring of power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-24 05:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keiliss/pseuds/keiliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Third Age 1409.  When a lonely child finds a ring of power, Imladris faces deadly peril.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

>  

“I know they’ve been worn, my dear, but they’re in good condition and just the size for your boy. I don’t want them going to waste, and it would be a shame to cut them down for rags or patchwork.”  
  
Meldis looked at the small bundle of clothing, all of which would fit Síladon who was growing like a dandelion; hardly any of last winter’s clothes fitted him now. She suspected he was teased about this in his study group, though he would never tell her, of course. Children could be so cruel to one another. He was still very young, but he understood there was no money for new clothes, not since war had come to Eriador and the beaded belts and wristbands she made could no longer be traded to Mirkwood over the mountains.  
  
There was enough food. No one went hungry in Imladris, and Thavron worked for the garrison, repairing weapons and sharpening swords, so they received the same allowance as the warriors’ families. Even so, there was nothing to spare for extras.  
  
She had no idea what had possessed Thavron to go with the war band when they rode out to join Lord Círdan, but he said there had to be someone along to see to repairs, and he was still young and strong enough to wield a sword if needed. His father had studied smithcraft under Celebrimbor himself, but while they shared a love for metal, Thavron lacked the skill to create artefacts such as those of fabled Ost-in-Edhil. Sometimes it was as though he felt the need to make up for some lack in himself, though Meldis had always been proud of her gentle, softly-spoken husband…  
  
She came back to herself abruptly with a murmured apology. She had almost forgotten Amdirien was still waiting patiently. The clothes were a most welcome gift, but Meldis had been raised not to accept charity. Still, if she turned down the offer, she would hurt her neighbour’s feelings. A conversation she had heard in the village square just a few days back came to her, Lord Glorfindel telling a group of young elves how barter had been much the order of the day back in Gondolin. Meldis liked Lord Glorfindel, he was quietly friendly and interested in their troubles, no matter how small. Tall and strong, hair like polished gold…  
  
Gold. The answer came to her in a flash. Her face lit up. “I can’t take your son’s clothes and give nothing in return, Amdirien, but if you will, I can offer something pretty in thanks? And I am truly grateful, Síladon really needs new clothes.”  
  
She hurried back into their tiny wattle and daub house as she spoke. In the corner of the bedroom, in the basket that held her clothing, was a little box, and in it were the few pretties their families had collected over time and that had not crossed the sea with his mother and her sister. It held her pearls, a string of amber beads from the north, a pretty topaz broach, chains of gold and silver, and a collection of earrings and rings, one of which lay in the bottom of the box, wrapped in a fragment of ancient green silk. Frowning a little, she picked up the silk and shook it out, and the ring fell neatly into her hand.  
  
She had forgotten about it. Thavron had never really explained about the ring, just that his father had made it in Ost-in-Edhil, that it was a family heirloom, and he would rather she not touch it as it was – delicate. She had never thought it looked delicate, but something in the way he avoided handling it made her hold back questions. It had been kept in a little box, which lay off to the side, its lid open. The clasp must have worked loose and the ring fallen out when she began moving things around.  
  
The band was gold, while the gem was blue streaked with greens and yellows, an opal she had assumed, though now she was suddenly uncertain. The lines seemed to be moving, which was surely a trick of the light, and the colours looked stronger than before. She was reminded of the uneasy way Thavron had looked at it before putting it away that first time he showed it to her.  
  
The ring seemed to pulse, startling her badly and bringing her back very much to the here and now. She looked down at it sharply, and it lay in her hand, solid and a little heavier than the design would suggest. It seemed to be – waiting for something.  
  
Meldis was not a fanciful woman, but there was something not right about this artefact; it had made her uncomfortable from the start. For a moment she was sorely tempted, but it belonged to Thavron’s family and had value for him. Perhaps if their need were greater… There was a silver ring set with a smooth, black onyx which Thavron seldom wore. Putting the gold ring back rather more hurriedly than was necessary, she selected that one instead.  
  
Leaving the box open, she went back to where Amdirien was waiting at the door, her demeanour less patient now. After all, her expression said, if Meldis had no need for her children’s outgrown clothing, there were others who did. “I’m sorry I’ve kept you, Amdirien,” Meldis said hastily. “I had to find it. Here --- how about this? It belonged to my father. Would you like this?”  
  
Amdirien took the ring, turned it around between her fingers, then smiled. “It’s a man’s design. Perhaps I can give it to my brother for his begetting day – I’ll have to see if it’ll fit. Thank you, Meldis. This will serve very well indeed.”

 

\--oOo—

  
“Elrohir, will there still be a harvest festival this year, or did you cancel it and forget to tell me? I’ve had no details about the planning yet.” Erestor’s tone was mild, casual even, but the slight arch of his left eyebrow was a warning sign Elrond’s children had learned young to take very seriously.  
  
Elrohir looked uncomfortable. He had impulsively offered to oversee the arrangements for the festival in between his work as a healer’s assistant and his ongoing studies in the care of animals, and must have been quite pleased with how much leeway his father’s seneschal had been allowing him.  
  
Arwen was struggling with a piece of embroidery and spoke with her eyes on her work, her mouth twisted slightly in effort. “I thought we were waiting till the warriors came home to have it? I mean, it doesn’t matter if we’re a few days past the full moon, surely? Just this once?”  
  
Elrohir looked worried. Arwen usually had a better idea of what was happening than he did. “I’ve already organised the fireworks, and…”  
  
“These would be very tame fireworks that can’t be seen from beyond the valley, of course,” Elrond said, looking up with a frown. He had been reading, turned half away from them with the book tilted to catch the best light and had seemed to be ignoring the conversation.  
  
“We need to go ahead, Wen,” Erestor explained as Arwen’s surprised look moved from her father to him. “If we don’t, someone will decide we’re hiding something, and that kind of attitude spreads too easily. Waiting for the men to return might look like an excuse.”  
  
“It’s good for the community’s morale,” Glorfindel agreed. He had come over to them quietly, wine glass in hand, and was leaning against the mantle near where Erestor sat. They shared a quick smile, a greeting without words, before he turned to Arwen. ”You’re not enjoying that embroidery, are you?”  
  
“I hate embroidery,” she told him very sincerely. “Mother says it’s important for me to learn all the ‘womanly arts’, but the needle always wants to go its own way. Riding a horse is much easier. Grandmother says the same.”  
  
Erestor had once mentioned Galadriel’s example to Elrond, to which Elrond had replied that he was sure Celebrían was well aware of her mother’s views on the subject, and Erestor was free to go ahead and speak up on Arwen’s behalf. Erestor had been wise enough to keep quiet. He now caught Glorfindel’s eye and frowned a warning.  
  
Hint taken, blue eyes twinkled before Glorfindel sobered and continued, “If there was no festival it would suggest we were in immediate danger, then whispers would start and fear would spread. And fear is a greater enemy than any orc or fighting warg.”  
  
“Fighting wargs are easy to see off,” Elrohir said at once. “Caelian says you just get your spear in the side of the neck below the ear and they go right over.”  
  
Glorfindel raised his eyebrows, amused. “Takes good timing and just the right angle, I’ve heard,” he suggested. “But yes, there are worse things than a half-breed wolf. What do you have planned for the festival then, besides fireworks?”  
  
Elrohir visibly relaxed as he realised he wasn’t about to discuss the finer points of warg disposal with someone who had killed a Balrog. “Well, the usual things. A bonfire, food, singing, blessing the harvest – Father does that better than anyone,” he added, shooting a hopeful look towards his father who had retreated back into his book. “Then I thought fireworks before the music starts, and after that, dancing? Though if the fireworks aren’t a good idea, we can leave those off?”  
  
“Smaller might be better,” Erestor said. “Your father’s right, we don’t want to act like frightened mice, but equally we don’t want to signal our whereabouts to anyone who happens to be up in the mountains. At least keep it tame.”  
  
“Do you think they’re looking for us?” Arwen asked softly, her needlework forgotten in her lap. Her grey eyes were wide and troubled.  
  
“Of course they are,” Elrohir said, with the boyish eagerness of someone whose primary occupation was not military. “There’s fighting right across Eriador, the Men from Arthedain have been pushed right back to Fornost Erain. Angmar knows there are elves somewhere around here, they’ll have seen us fighting alongside Araphor’s men. Of course they’re looking for us. Dan says we should mobilise a force and go take them from behind while we still can.”  
  
“And give away our position as surely as Turin did Nargothrond’s?” Elrond asked dryly, his eyes on his book. “This is a haven, Elrohir. People live here in the belief that they will be safe. Right now we need to stay quiet and let the war eddy around without touching us.”  
  
“And while we’re doing that, we should keep to as much of a routine as possible,” Erestor finished off. “Life needs to go on as usual, or as close to it as we can manage.”  
  
Glorfindel said nothing. He had come to perch on the arm of Erestor’s chair and was sipping his wine, his eyes on the fire. Elrond had refused to allow him to ride with the warriors they had sent to join Círdan’s men, sensing he would be needed at home rather than in the field. This had left Glorfindel a warrior without a war, with nothing to do except visit the various watch posts above the valley and encourage the men stationed there.  
  
He made no complaint but Erestor suspected it was driving him slowly crazy, and that their current situation was bringing back all kinds of memories; this was not the first time he had lived in a hidden valley sought by a determined enemy. He moved closer and rested his head briefly against Glorfindel’s arm, trying not to be obvious about it. “No need to worry,” he told the two younger elves. “There have been other alarms, this one will also pass. Right now a good feast with some music and dancing is just what Imladris needs.”


	2. Chapter 2

“I don’t see why I can’t go out on patrol with the rest of you? Thalien is a head shorter than me, and she’s a captain already.”  
  
Elrond’s children were having breakfast in the kitchen at the small table where senior staff took time off to relax with tea during the day. The door was open and the scents of damp soil and herbs growing in the kitchen garden wafted in to vie with new baked bread, frying oatcakes and other breakfast-related smells.  
  
“Because Father’s hair would turn white overnight?” suggested Elladan, trying unsuccessfully to steal a forkful of mushrooms from his brother’s plate.  
  
Elrohir defended his omelette firmly, glaring at his twin. “You just wanted fruit and bread, you said it was healthier. So eat it, leave mine alone. Yes, that, and she’d probably drive the captain crazy with questions every few paces.”  
  
Arwen returned look for look. “Oh, right. Well at least I’d be reliable and do as I was told. Unlike some of us. If there’s no harvest festival this year, Erestor will make your life so miserable.”  
  
“Of course there’ll be a festival. Just goes to show, you don’t even remember what we were talking about last night.”  
  
“I heard your promises,” Arwen told him between mouthfuls of lightly stewed fruit. “I just don’t see anything happening yet. And it’s a shame about the fireworks, I love big fireworks. Did you see Erestor and Glorfindel pretending not to be a couple? That was much more interesting.”  
  
“They’re bad at it, aren’t they?” Elrohir said with a grin. “I’ve caught them holding hands when they thought no one was watching.”  
  
Elladan looked uncertain. “Aren’t they a bit old for that?” he asked. “And – Erestor holding hands with anyone sounds wrong.”  
  
“Erestor had a huge, scandalous affair back in Lindon,” Arwen confided. “I heard all about it.”  
  
“Listening in doorways again?” Elrohir asked disparagingly.  
  
“I do not eavesdrop,” his sister retorted crossly. “I just happen to overhear people talking, that’s all. And listening in doorways isn’t half as bad as following Eirien around like a little puppy…”  
  
“I do not!”  
  
“Yes you do. Little puppy, woof, woof, woof.”  
  
“Arwen you are a…”  
  
“Shut up you two, people are looking.” Elladan didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t have to. This was a family mantra, second nature to quasi-royal children who had been on display from birth. “And you know you shouldn’t listen to gossip, Wen.” He briefly fought temptation, then succumbed. “Who was he having the affair with then?”  
  
Arwen frowned. “I didn’t hear the name, but it was someone important. They were talking about when he’d been sleeping with ‘you know who’, and….”  
  
“Mother would wash your mouth out with soap,” Elladan interrupted.  
  
“Mother probably still believes I think the wild geese bring babies,” Arwen laughed. “I hope I know better than that, so stop acting so virtuous and precious. Anyhow we weren’t talking about this, we were talking about the festival.”  
  
Elrohir held up a hand placatingly. “Right, the festival - but if you ever hear who it was, you have to tell us. Father will do the speech and present the first fruits in honour of Lady Yavanna. I’ve talked to Lindir and Handiel, and they’re making a special composition to play in the background while he talks. The fireworks --- they’ll have to be toned down, but Sael says we can still have those little glow worm lights, those sparkly lights on a stick? And then there’ll be a special harvest dance – Lindir’s seeing to that – with pretty costumes, And we’ll eat like pigs, of course.”  
  
“Sounds good,” Elladan said round a mouthful of still-warm bread. “Think I’ll have some oatmeal after all, I’m taking a patrol across the Ford later today. Oh, that’s another reason you can’t be a warrior, Wen. Daffy’s way too fat and lazy to gallop.”  
  
Displaying unusual diplomacy, Elrohir beckoned one of the junior cooks over and asked if his brother could have some oatmeal, neatly preventing the outbreak of sibling warfare. Arwen loved her horse.

\--oOo—

  
“Don’t you think this might just be word association?” Erestor asked softly. They were lying in bed in the half light before dawn, Glorfindel with his head resting in the hollow of Erestor’s shoulder while Erestor’s fingers carded absently through his hair.  
  
“How do you mean?” Glorfindel moved his hand up from Erestor’s waist to rest in the centre of his chest, letting the tension from the nightmare fade into the steady heartbeat against the palm.  
  
“Just – we were talking about a festival, a celebration in dangerous times, and it has to have reminded you of the attack on Gondolin. What would be more natural than that you should have a strange dream after that?” Erestor was gentle but practical, the motion of his hand remaining constant.  
  
“You think this is just – overactive imagination?”  
  
“No, no, not imagination. Just that it’s too close to a very painful memory – hidden valley, enemies searching for it, a feast day…”  
  
Glorfindel sighed and sat up, pushing his hair back from his face. He felt it slide down his back and shoulders, cloaking him, and Erestor reach up a hand to continue stroking it. “So you think my judgement’s been skewed by my past and it’s affecting my sleep?” He tried and failed to make it sound like a joke. “Yes, I have concerns based on what happened in Gondolin, but that’s mainly due to the way we failed to take enough care on that one day – there was no proper watch, everyone wanted to take part – there were only two really big festivals a year, you know, and…”  
  
“I know, baby.” Erestor’s voice was soft, fitting the early morning hush. “And after such a long time I can understand everyone’s caution slipping for one day, but that won’t happen here. The danger is too close and too present, there’s guards at the access points, a full watch up the mountain – nothing left to chance. Elrond would never allow it, you know that.”  
  
Glorfindel looked out the window, watching the light slowly change and brighten. “I remember getting up round this time the day it happened,” he said quietly. “Needed to weave flowers in my hair, get into all that finery – formal dress in Gondolin was a thing apart. Took forever to get it all straight. “  
  
“And it wasn’t much later than this that it happened, was it? With the rising sun, you told me. But this will be at night, in the heart of the valley, the safest place in Arda. Go over the watch deployment with Caelian again if it’ll make you feel better. He won’t mind and I – don’t want you having any more dark dreams.”  
  
“Because they mean you have to wake up an hour early and make soothing sounds,” Glorfindel said with a grin, taking Erestor’s hand and raising it briefly to his lips. “Sorry, it’s not a habit of mine. And I haven’t had a full-fledged nightmare for ages either.”  
  
“Mm, I know. Not since you stopped sleeping alone. I have my uses.”  
  
“Yes, you do, and they are many and varied.” Glorfindel left the bed and walked naked across the room to the window, the air fresh and cool against his skin. He leaned a hand on the sill and looked out. The room was high above the river, not far from the second waterfall. The opposite wall of the ravine climbed straight up to the high ground, small, hardy bushes clinging to shallow crevices and tenacious trees thickening into a small forest near the top. The world was dawn-grey.  
  
He studied the skyline, frowning to himself. There were watchers on the moorland, just as there were watch stations at various points along the cliff. This was, as Erestor said, possibly the safest place in Arda, and yet – the dream had whispered of darkness and power and things moving that should lie buried deep in the earth. Erestor might feel it was nothing more than a bad memory, and Erestor was smart and wise. But he was not always right.  
 

\--oOo--

“You look tired.”  
  
There was a little square near one of the side entrances and Elrond was there, sitting on a bench under an old chestnut tree. He was leaning back with his face turned up to the sun, his eyes closed. Glorfindel could feel the power of the Ring of Air wrapping around him lightly like a summer cloak.  
  
Elrond opened grey eyes and gave him a half smile. “It was a late night followed by an early morning. Come and join me here in the sun. I was enjoying the birds and the water.”  
  
Glorfindel, who had spent the best part of an hour looking for the lord of the valley and now aimed to make the encounter seem purely serendipitous, sat down beside him on the bench. The flowing water was only a little louder than the waterfall further upstream, the birds were indeed singing and the sun was pleasantly warm. He breathed in deeply and forced himself to relax. He had learned that skill in Gondolin, as with so many others he would formerly have been embarrassed to own. In the rarefied atmosphere of Turgon’s court, it was never wise to seem tense or anxious. It made people nervous.  
  
“Late night?”  
  
Elrond shrugged slightly. “I sat on my balcony when I got back and walked the borders of the valley in my mind, every trail, every rabbit track, making sure everything was as it should be and that there were no blind spots. It took hours. I followed the river as far as I could see her, too.“  
  
“Nothing?”  
  
“Nothing to cause concern yet. Further out towards the crossroads I could feel orcs, but they were moving south. I’ve sent word up that they’re to keep an especial watch on the Ford, though nothing will cross there without my knowing.”  
  
Glorfindel nodded, considered. “Should you be using – what you are using, at this time? Power is its own signpost, they say. If I can sense it...”  
  
Elrond’s smile was easy, lighting his face and smoothing the lines under his eyes. “Oh, but you are vastly different than anything or anyone we need to stay hidden from, my friend. You can sense things because you were born across the water – twice. This would be too subtle for an orc to understand.”  
  
“They know power,” Glorfindel reminded him. “They grew in darkness and fear and were moulded by power.”  
  
“And they would know dark power, yes, but not light. The light is foreign to them and those who command them.”  
  
Glorfindel studied the view down the gorge to where the river turned and the mountain blocked his view. “Those who command them. The so-called Witch-king, you mean? I wish we knew more about who or what the lord of Angmar is. The rise of that power came so quickly, too easily.”  
  
“There was plotting and preparation out of sight first, yes,” Elrond agreed. “Kingdoms don’t just appear. I don’t know. Galadriel thinks something remained from the last war and grew while we were occupied elsewhere, but --- I have my own ideas.”  
  
Glorfindel waited, but Elrond fell silent, watching the birds up in the tree. Eventually, keeping his tone light, he asked, “You’ve not sensed anything else in the past few nights? Nothing moving just beyond sight, perhaps? I had a dream of sorts, but Erestor thought it was to do with Gondolin. I – wasn’t so sure.”  
  
Elrond’s eyes took him in carefully. “Have you been having the dreams again, then? I hadn’t expected them to return.”  
  
Glorfindel had been plagued for years after his arrival by dreams of smoke and fire, desperate screams, searing pain. It was his fëa coming to terms with past reality, Elrond hazarded, and in time they had stopped. Erestor’s part in that was still a private matter, not something he was ready to share. He shook his head now. “Nothing like that, more like a feeling of something waiting in the dark.”  
  
He smoothed the hem of his tunic, his fingers following the line of embossed leaves, light green on dark. “Elrond, is the harvest festival a good idea at a time like this really? I know what I said about morale, but aren’t we making ourselves vulnerable? Even the guard posts will have a portion of the feast – it’s a distraction at a time when we have men missing, no news coming in of what’s happening in the outside world…”  
  
“And you’re reminded of another festival, another threat, and it makes you uneasy? Well, that’s perfectly understandable.” Unlike Erestor, Elrond did not stroke his hair, but his voice was equally indulgent. Glorfindel forced himself not to let the flash of annoyance he felt show on his face. The more he thought of it, the more certain he was that the dream, which lay in misty fragments these many hours after, had nothing to do with the attack on Gondolin.  
  
“That’s not the point,” he said evenly. “I know the festival would be reassuring for almost everyone living here; it signifies life going on as it does year on year. It might even take people’s minds off the missing fighters for an hour or two. But there’s something not right, something that makes me uneasy on a level no dream has ever touched. You’re certain you haven’t felt anything – unusual?”  
  
Elrond shook his head. “My lord, there is nothing to sense, just the uneasiness of war on the air and empty seats at table. You know the men who guard our sleep as well as I, you’ve ridden with them, hunted down orcs with them, broken bread with them. I am not my great-grandfather, Glorfindel. There will be no sleeping on watch in my valley. Angmar will not touch us here.”  
 

 


	3. Chapter 3

There was a draught coming from somewhere, but she was used to that, there was always a draught. The rows of cottages occupied by families serving the barracks were very basic structures and not proof against bad weather. Meldis found the rain easiest to deal with, the tell-tale wetness quick to spot and reseal. The wind was more troublesome, bringing in loose sand and the moist air from the river.  
  
She finished brushing her hair and crossed the room to put the brush away on the table with her hair clasps, the little jar of salve for cuts and bruises, and the rosemary oil she used sparingly on Síladon’s hair. Looking over the jewellery that morning had left her feeling tired and depressed, and the mood had stayed with her all day. The little voice of fear that whispered it could not feel Thavron’s presence within as it had since they were bound was speaking louder tonight, and she tried to block it out with memories of happier times.  
  
She had been raised just outside of Mithlond, part of a close-knit family who had crossed the sea shortly after her binding. Her father had been reluctant to give his permission at first, but Thavron's glowing description of the valley realm under Lord Elrond had finally won him round. Their departure had left her perhaps a little more reliant upon Thavron than might otherwise have been the case. She had always been shy and took a while to make friends, spending most of her time with her family. Tonight, thinking back, she realised once again how much she missed the brother and sister who were now safely over the water in Aman  
.  
One thought followed another, leading her to the corner where the box holding her valuables was kept. Taking it she went back to her bed, pausing as she passed Síladon’s to tuck the covering in more firmly over his shoulder. He murmured in his sleep but didn’t wake. He had slept in a little curtained alcove off the living room once he was old enough for a proper bed, but since Thavron’s departure she had moved him in with her, as much for her own comfort as for his.  
  
The world was very quiet outside. There were no footsteps or voices, she thought perhaps her neighbours were already in bed. The flame of the single candle flickered a little, sending shadows leaping and dancing about the corners of the room. Meldis sat with her legs curled under her and emptied the contents of the little box into the centre of the bed. Candlelight winked and glittered off garnets and topaz, lit a strand of moonstones, brought out the sheen on a string of pearls, and fastened on the gold of the opal ring.  
  
She picked the ring up slowly, turning it again between her fingers. Colours seemed to slide beneath the surface of the stone, rendered strange by the dim, golden light. She looked at the size of the band then tried it on her middle finger. Too loose, in fact so loose she didn’t trouble to move it past the knuckle. Instead she tried it on her thumb, to see how it would look there. She turned her hand, watching the glitter, and was startled by a strange thrumming sensation that passed from her thumb right up her arm to the elbow. Startled and a little afraid she pulled the ring off and stared at it in the palm of her hand, harmless and yet --- not.  
  
She had the strangest feeling, as though someone stood in the shadows watching her. She looked around sharply and then stared hard at the darkened doorway that led into their living room. Nothing moved, there was no sound at all besides scraping branches from the tree at the back of the cottage and the river noise which was a constant in their lives, so familiar and somehow comforting that it normally lulled her to sleep. There was a moment, just one moment, when she seemed to feel the familiar presence of Thavron, almost as though he had stepped into the room. Once again the ring lying in her hand pulsed – and the candle went out.  
  
Almost throwing the circle of gold onto the bed, Meldis sat absolutely still, her heart thudding, blood rushing in her ears. When she could breathe again she listened carefully, but heard no foreign noises. The sense of someone there, of Thavron’s presence there, had vanished with the light. Síladon turned over in his sleep muttering something and settled again. The tree creaked outside. Finally she found the courage to leave the bed, cross the small room to the table, find the tinder box, and strike a light.  
  
It took three attempts before she succeeded and light spread through the bedroom. She looked around fearfully, but everything was as it had been, including the muddle of jewellery on her bed. She tipped everything back into the box, picking up the ring with the amber necklace and dropping it in hastily. Before she closed the lid she looked down at it lying innocently within amber coils. Like an orange dragon guarding its hoard, she thought. Then, embarrassed at what had clearly been overactive imagination coupled with the loneliness she so often felt, she closed the lid hard.  
  
The ring had belonged to Thavron, she reminded herself firmly, and because she was so worried about him, her emotions lent it characteristics that she would laugh at in the light of day. Putting the box away where it belonged she went back to bed, placing the candle on the little nightstand beside her. It took a while though before she found the nerve to nip the wick and let in the night.

\--oOo--

“What’s wrong?”  
  
Erestor had barely slid into sleep when he was woken by movement in the bed beside him. Squinting up through tangled hair he saw Glorfindel sitting bolt upright beside him, blond hair silvered by moonlight. As he watched, Glorfindel leaned forward, arms resting on drawn-up knees and sighed gustily. “Gods. That was not good.”  
  
It had been a long day, busy and a little frustrating, and Erestor needed a minute to clear his head and wake up properly. Finally he reached a hand to rest on the nearest part of Glorfindel – the top of his thigh, as it turned out – and asked carefully, “Another dream?”  
  
Glorfindel nodded without turning. “Another dream, clearer than the last one. Something spreading like dark smoke through the valley, and eyes, eyes following our every move. It was --- unsettling, Ery. Creepy.”  
  
Erestor sighed deeply and sat up next to him. It was late but not yet midnight. Usually at least one of them would still be up, but Glorfindel’s day had been equally long and sleep had seemed more inviting than a few hours in the Hall of Fire or walking in the moonlight or --- the things people did when they weren’t dead tired. So much for an early night, he thought.  
  
The drapes were open and the light from the almost full moon had wiped out the colours in the room, painting everything in shades of black and grey. The night was quiet, unusually so Erestor thought with a vague sense of unease. He shook it off at once; Glorfindel was making him grow fanciful. “Eyes and smoke? That’s from worrying if you can trust people and being concerned that the war will find its way down here…”  
  
“I am not imagining this, Erestor,” Glorfindel snapped, all warrior now. “These dreams are a warning, a sign of impending danger…”  
  
“Findel, the whole of Eriador is at war. We have men unaccounted for, your men. It is vital that no trail leads to our haven. All the rest. Of course there’s impending danger, but I cannot imagine Lórien bothering to send a special warning at this point. I know the Valar think we’re not all that bright, but…”  
  
“Erestor, that is blasphemy.”  
  
“Yes, I know. And true, too. Anyhow. Someone spying, following? That would be Maeglin. You told me yourself, you were never at ease about him and that Idril said…”  
  
“This has nothing to do with Maeglin.”  
  
“Well, there’s no need to raise your voice.”  
  
“I wouldn’t have to raise my voice if you would just listen. This has nothing to do with the past, this is here, now. There is something very wrong right here in Imladris, Ery. Can you really not feel it? Something…” he reached for words, “... something out of place.”  
  
Erestor frowned at him, the whisper of a touch of concern creeping back and shivering his skin. Glorfindel had the steadiest nerves of anyone he knew, or seemed to, but the current situation bore enough similarity to the last days of Gondolin to put that steadiness to the test. Fortunately, he told himself, there were no Balrogs anywhere near Imladris.  
  
“Baby, no, I can’t sense anything out of place. Not to say there isn’t,” he added, trying to be fair, “because you would be more likely to pick up on that than I. But – Elrond’s said nothing and seems no more concerned than he should be with men missing and towns burning. If you like, I can ask him if he’s noticed anything? It’s his valley, he’s – attuned to it.”  
  
“Spoke to him earlier.”  
  
“And?” Erestor placed a hand on Glorfindel’s shoulder and made soothing movements with his fingertips. He felt Glorfindel tense for a moment as though about to pull away, and then slowly relax under his touch.  
  
“Nothing. Though he’s so busy feeling out every bunny trail in the valley through Vilya that he might not notice a fire-breathing dragon setting up camp in the cow pasture.”  
  
“I think we’d smell the burning flesh.” Erestor suggested, ducking his head to kiss Glorfindel’s shoulder softly. “Come, love. You’re worried about your men, you’re frustrated that Elrond wouldn’t allow you to go with them… everyone’s a little tense, to say the least. That’s why we’re having the festival - follow the custom, send out the signal that everything is under control. And it is. You just need to try and relax.”  
  
Glorfindel put an arm around him and ran his fingers through Erestor’s sleep-tangled hair. He said nothing, but his posture suggested he remained unconvinced.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Keeping his head down and walking quickly so that no one would stop him and ask where he was going, the boy turned off the village’s main street and into a narrow lane between two rows of cottages. He was a slightly built child, with too-serious eyes and nut brown hair worn back in a thick braid. The laneway was deserted; this was the time of day when people were at their busiest and no one else was likely to be home. That suited Síladon, he wanted to be alone.  
  
He let himself into the cottage and held his breath, listening in case his mother was there after all, but the space felt empty and there was no sound of movement, no concerned voice asking why he was back from his lesson group so early. He breathed a sigh of relief and put down his bag with the writing implements and the board to rest them on and went through to the tiny kitchen to pour himself a cup of water from the jug on the corner table where Nana prepared food.  
  
He took the cup into the bedroom and sat on his bed under the window where there was a good view of Old Man Oak as he called the tree at the back of the cottage. Usually the tree seemed friendly and reassuring but right now he felt nothing, no connection at all. He crossed his legs and the motion brought his eyes to the pants he was wearing, blue with a hint of white stitching down the side. Hot discomfort flooded him again.  
  
He had been quite excited when he got ready for school that morning, having something new to wear rather than the too-short brown pants that had been his main item of clothing for months now. Things had gone well enough for the first hour while they studied numbers and their relation to the natural order of the universe, but when they took the break between subjects, the trouble started.  
  
He was sitting on his own eating one of the little honey cakes Nan had packed for his lunch when he became aware of the snickering. Tegior and his friends were standing in a circle talking and laughing and throwing glances his way. He had no idea what he might have done this time, so he just kept quiet and pretended not to notice. Boys his age found him boring. He had no idea why, probably something to do with him not being good at swimming or running, terrible at archery and not really all that fond of climbing on top of or over things either. Síladon liked reading and watching the water and listening to the leaves whispering in that language his father told him he would understand when he was older.  
  
Normally this gained him a few derisive hoots of laughter, but otherwise he was ignored, left to his reading and daydreaming. He had a special dream that one day a new family with a boy his age would move to Imladris and the boy would like the things he did, and he would finally have a friend again. He had been very lonely since Gelirgan and his family sailed West. They had always been friends, liked the same things…  
  
"You're wearing Calareg's old trousers." Tegior had arrived without his noticing and was standing over him. He was one of the bigger boys, a warrior's son and plainly due to follow in his father's footsteps. He was sneering now as he looked down at Síladon. "Calareg says those are his baby clothes that he outgrew and threw out on the compost heap. And that Lord Glorfindel's dog peed on them."  
  
This was greeted with howls of laughter and more pointing as this latest addition to an already good story was repeated. No one knew if Lord Glorfindel even had a dog, but that hardly mattered. "Can you smell it, Tegior?" someone called. "Does it smell like dog pee? Really?"  
  
Tegior had a cup of water in his hand, which he now tilted so that a few drops fell on Síladon before he could move out of the way. "It's got a wet mark on it, on the leg. That must be where it happened. Or else maybe it was Síladon himself.”  
  
What happened next was inevitable as the boys took up a chorus of ‘Síladon peed in Calareg’s pants, Síladon peed in Calareg’s pants…’  
  
Síladon had got to his feet, half stumbling in his haste, just remembered to grab his bag, and left the open glade where they ate lunch. He managed to do this without running, because he knew he would never live that down, but he walked very fast and kept blinking hard to stop himself from crying. He was almost at the path when he heard Calareg calling. He was usually quite friendly and would often warn Tegior when he was going too far, but Síladon just walked faster, heading for home, a place that smelt of lemon polish and lavender and his father’s hair oil. Home, where he could close the door on the world and feel safe.  
  
The room felt peaceful. Golden light bathed the floor under the window and outlined the leaves of the old oak. The river sang out of sight beyond the trees. His mother would be up to the barracks getting their food portion for the week. Sometimes she helped with things like washing and cleaning, and he had heard Amdirien tell her she should ask for payment for her time and labour. She never would, she liked helping people. Ada teased her about it, told her she had a heart both too big and too sensitive, but he said it with affection and usually she laughed.  
  
Ada had been away for four moons now, and Síladon missed him all the time. Nan was loving and warm and kind and fussed over him, but Ada was the one who listened about his lessons and explained things, Ada was the one who took him walking along the river bank and showed him flowers and birds. It was Ada who always managed to find money for a book on his begetting day, and had even borrowed a few for him from Master Erestor, a personage so important that Síladon would never dare have approached him. Ada would have listened now and he would have understood.  
  
He had asked Nan several times when Ada would be coming home, and to begin with she said soon, very soon, but recently her face had grown tight and she said more slowly that she didn’t know, when the army came back, she supposed, and he knew to stop asking. Lacking close friends did not mean he never heard the boys whispering or the men in the square where they gathered to talk and sing at day’s end. He knew they were all starting to wonder not when but if the warriors would return.  
  
The thought made him restless and he looked around for something to distract him. It had been strange sharing the room with Nan at first, and he had worried that somehow the other boys would find out, but he knew she was lonely with Ada gone. The alcove in the main room felt very alone without his father’s presence in the cottage, so he had been grateful when she said they might both feel better for the company. She had left Ada’s things out to begin with, his shoes and his other hairbrush and such, but they were put away after the last new moon as though she knew something she was not yet ready to share with him.  
  
The sun shone on the edge of a small wooden box that was sitting atop one of the storage baskets in the corner. He knew it was the box his parents kept their small store of personal jewellery in and stared, wondering what it was doing there. He supposed Nan must have been looking for something earlier and forgot to put it away. Getting up he crossed the room, meaning to put it in the basket where he knew it belonged. Instead he took it and went back to sit on the bed in the sunshine under the window and opened it.  
  
The sun glinted and sparkled off the contents, mainly strands of gems to be worn in the hair on special occasions like the harvest festival that was happening in a few nights. He remembered the last one, his father wearing the garnets, his mother’s hair studded with the tiny pearls, dancing together and laughing near the big fire. Unshed tears sparkled on his lashes. He moved things around, picked up a broach shaped like a leaf to look at it, took out a pair of gold earrings made of dancing hoops and crescent moons that he had never seen before. He held them up to the sun, watching them flash fire at him, then reluctantly put them back.  
  
He was almost ready to close the box when he saw the ring. It lay half hidden within the coils of a string of amber beads, and to begin with all he could see was the gold band. Reaching in, he lifted it out and sat with it in the palm of his hand, watching the sun chase across the strange, multicoloured stone. The light made the colours shift and drift almost as though they moved. Síladon had never seen this ring before, but it was a man’s design and he knew instinctively that it belonged to his father. It had a ‘feel’ of him about it, as though it had barely left his hand and still carried something of his essence with it.  
  
The cottage felt very lonely. He liked to pretend that Ada would come back just as they sat down to the evening meal, but he knew it was pretend, knew it with a part of him that was aware of things that had no words. Feeling very quiet inside, he put everything else back neatly in the box, replaced the lid and returned it to the top of the basket. Then, taking the ring, he went inside to where his bag still lay and rummaged around inside it.  
  
The pouch was soft leather with a tie made of thin strips of hide braided together and knotted at just the right length for Síladon to wear it round his neck. Fortune bags were popular with very young children, and held good luck finds like feathers, pretty stones, or unusual beads. Siladon had not quite outgrown this fancy yet, though lately he had taken to carrying the pouch more discreetly.  
  
Opening the drawstring he dropped the contents into his hand, examined them, finally discarding two stones. The ring fitted and everything else went back with a little prodding and shifting, including one of the stones. Síladon held the pouch for a minute, conscious of the added weight. He took the other stone into the bedroom, placing it on the windowsill where he could see it. It was a piece of yellow quartz he had found one day out walking with Gelirgan, and it seemed happy to be out in the sunlight and fresh air. His mood lifted a little; he was glad it liked its new home.  
  
Slipping the pouch over his head and around his neck, he fetched his lesson bag and sorted out the pens, the carefully stoppered little bottle of ink, the wax tablet, the strips of wood for practice writing and class work because paper was valuable and only the older students got to write on it. Putting everything together tidily on the table as though he had done practice work, he wondered what the chances were Nan wouldn’t find out he had left school half way through the day, and what he would say should she ask.


	5. Chapter 5

“So many names…” Elladan rolled the scroll evenly as his eyes skimmed the list. It was a good parchment scroll with proper wood handles, and Erestor had no idea how Círdan had come by such a thing in the midst of a campaign. Mind, it was the kind of detail that Gil-galad had been good with, and it was from Círdan that he would have learned that skill.  
  
Erestor glanced discreetly at Elrond and flicked his eyes to Elladan. There had been no war since before his birth, and this reality of loss and casualties was something new for him to assimilate and accept. Elves were not like orcs or brigands, or so the generation born in the valley seemed to think. Elves did not die, or if they did it was very occasionally and mainly involved exciting and courageous skirmishes with orcs. Like everyone else, Elrond’s first born needed to learn the truth of this and there had been quiet agreement between his parents that it was time for his education to begin.  
  
“Too many, yes,” Elrond agreed. “And with little to show for it. Angmar has pushed the men of Arthedain and Cirdan’s cohorts back to Fornost, and even that seems at risk from what he says here.” He passed the accompanying note to Elladan as he spoke. Erestor had already seen it. “The messenger had little to add to this, and the two wounded warriors who made the ride back with him knew even less. A couple of the names on the list aren’t confirmed, but most of this is vouched for.”  
  
The door to Elrond’s office opened while he was speaking and Glorfindel let himself in, closing it behind him. He was dressed for the outdoors, cloaked and booted, his hair braided, and the flush of colour in his cheeks suggested he had just returned to the house. His eyes touched Erestor first before turning to Elrond. “They told me you were looking for me?”  
  
“Yes. Been out riding? Coruon got back with the casualty list.”  
  
Glorfindel bowed his golden head briefly. “I was out walking, feeling the valley around me, touching the trees. And yes I know, I’ve already seen him. I looked in on Gailien and Caedion, too. I can’t believe Caedion managed to ride.” As he spoke, he took the scroll Elladan held out to him. There was no haste, he read name by name and took time to study the notes beside some of the entries. Finally he handed it back. “Coruon told me the others were falling back to Mithlond with Círdan, and that some of the names here were assumed rather than definite losses?”  
  
“Then you know as much as I do,” Elrond told him. “Though that suggestion of hope is one I think we should keep to ourselves. I’d rather a joyful reunion than have families hold onto false hope.”  
  
Erestor nodded and Glorfindel made a small sound of concurrence. Elladan’s voice was unaccustomedly subdued. “How do we tell them? We can’t just post the list and let them read it, can we?”  
  
“We tell each family personally,” his father replied. “That’s how it’s meant to be done. Not when the losses run into thousands, no, but in this case – "  
  
“I’ll do it,” Glorfindel cut in. “It’s been my task before.”  
  
“Dan and I will come with you then.” Elrond turned to straighten the work on his desk. He looked tired and there were grim lines marking his forehead and the sides of his mouth. “We are almost like family here, and…”  
  
“I – think not,” Erestor interrupted, not unkindly. “I know it’s what you feel you should do, but they’ll have enough to deal with when they receive the news without also trying to be brave in front of their lord. I know Gil-galad liked to handle it himself, but … times are different now, we’ve barely had a chance to realise we’re at war.” And one of Ereinion Gil-galad\s unique gifts had been an ability to give people space to grieve in his presence.  
  
“Erestor, Elladan and I,” Glorfindel suggested. “Erestor because people are used to him sorting out problems, Dan as your representative, and me because I am a warrior and I have seen death. And – they became my men the day Túrebion led them off to join Círdan and my role changed from advisor to Commander.”

\--oOo--

  
“That cottage felt – strange.”  
  
Deeply shaken by the experience, Elladan had gone on ahead. Talking quietly, Erestor and Glorfindel were making their way back slowly from the village to the rambling, interconnected group of buildings known as the House.  
  
“Of course it did,” Erestor replied practically. “That poor woman and her son have been waiting to hear the worst for days, perhaps weeks now. What you had to say came as no surprise.”  
  
Meldis had heard Glorfindel through while he explained about the attack on the support group, her face expressionless, her eyes fastened on a place behind him. When he had done, she said very quietly, “I think I knew, my lord. I could not feel him with me for a while now. I had hoped but --- I think I knew. Thank you for your kindness in coming to tell us.”  
  
She had been resting a hand on her son’s shoulder while they listened to Glorfindel, and it had strayed to smooth his hair gently while she was speaking. The boy stood quiet, a closed look on his small face. Erestor wondered how well he understood what he had just heard, but supposed his mother was the one to work through that with him. Not an outsider, no matter how well-meaning.  
  
“I know all that,” Glorfindel replied, waiting while Erestor took a look at one of the posts supporting the covering of the communal well. There had been complaints about its stability of late, “and to a point it explains what I was feeling. But there was also something else, something I can’t put my finger on.”  
  
“The boy should have been crying,” Erestor said, more to himself than Glorfindel. “I don’t like it when they don’t cry. Children who don’t respond openly to grief always have trouble with it later. I hope Meldis can manage to counsel him while dealing with her own pain. I don’t think they have other family here, it was just the three of them.”  
  
“Perhaps I’ll come past in a few days and see how things are,” Glorfindel suggested, taking his hand as they reached the path alongside the swift-flowing Bruinen. “It might help to talk --- and I can see if the ‘something’ I sensed becomes plainer.”  
  
Erestor nodded. “That might be good, the talking I mean. I doubt the cottage will feel as heavy and dark then either, not now the waiting’s over. The truth may be harsh, but people need facts before they can move on.”

\--oOo--

  
“I hate not being able to do anything, Wen.”  
  
“Rohir says Caedion was so badly wounded he has no idea how he managed to stay on a horse. He’s feeling guilty, he says healers should have gone with them, he should have gone with them.”  
  
“Aldros went with them, he was killed when their camp was attacked. When we got there, his daughter was at the house with his little granddaughter…” Elladan closed his eyes briefly against the memory.  
  
Arwen rested a hand sympathetically on his arm. They were sitting close together in the Hall of Fire at a time of day when there were very few people around. She had seen him coming back from wherever he had gone with Erestor and Glorfindel, and the way he walked had been signal enough for her to go and join him. “Learning about war in books or from songs or people’s stories isn’t the same, is it?” she said quietly. “Perhaps that’s why Father hardly ever talks about it.”  
  
“We – sometimes someone gets wounded or killed going after orcs or stray mercenaries or whatever, but it’s a rare thing, so rare the whole valley comes out to mark their passing. This --- it’s too big. And, and telling their families was… I don’t have words for it, Wen.”  
  
“They didn’t make you do it, did they?” Arwen asked, startled. Elrond’s children were close without being sentimental, inclined to sarcasm and merciless teasing, but they could be fiercely protective of one another.  
  
Elladan shook his head quickly. “No, I just went along and watched, hugged the people I knew well. Glorfindel did most of the talking. He offered, said he’d had to do it before and they’d know he’d also lost loved ones. Father wanted to, but Erestor said it would be hard enough without them having to act strong in front of their lord. That’s why I was there, in his place.”  
  
She nodded. “That makes sense. And Erestor? What did he do?”  
  
Elladan paused, considered. “He offered his condolences, he promised to see to a few things that had to be taken care of… I think he was along to keep Glorfindel company mainly. I was no good, I just stared and tried to act like I understood how this had all happened.”  
  
“They do a lot of things together these days, don’t they? It’s sweet, specially when you think how old they both are. Are we safe here still, Dan? In the valley. They can’t reach us here, can they?”  
  
“No, they can’t, of course not,” Elladan said firmly, putting the afternoon’s events one side for a moment to reassure his sister. “No one was followed back and the watch stations are all on full alert. We’ll be fine. Just – so many warriors who won’t be coming home.”  
  
“It was like that in the old days, elves were dying all the time,” Arwen murmured. “It’s awful that it’s come back, the dark times. I always thought we’d live these quiet, boring lives till we finally sailed, and I used to resent it, but…”  
  
“They always acted as though it was an interlude,” Elladan responded, his voice low to match hers. “I used to think it was just that they’d seen too much war, but now I think – Grandmother once said darkness seldom dies, it just sleeps. I think it’s awake now. I – Wen, I’m not sure I want to be a captain. I’m not sure how I’d manage it if someone serving under me was killed.”  
  
“Same way as Father always handled it,” Arwen said, resorting to briskness in the face of something beyond her experience. “You’ll do what you have to, just with kindness and a good heart. That’s all anyone can do. Come, let’s talk about something else. Will we still have the festival, do you think? We’re really in mourning, aren’t we?”  
  
“I don’t know. Elrohir’s done a lot of work on it – at last. And Glorfindel and Erestor were talking while we walked down to Third Farm, and they kept agreeing how important it is to make sure people don’t panic. So yes, I think we’ll have the festival.”  
  
“That’s good,” Arwen said, releasing his arm at last and sounding a bit more like her usual self, less like their mother. “We need the festival. Elrohir would be unbearable otherwise.”  
  
“Might be,” Elladan said with a shrug. “Might be worse once he’s organised it and it’s gone off successfully. We can’t win.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

“Nothing that rises more than shoulder height into the air and not…”  
  
“Not outside the circle you’ve outlined for me so they can’t be seen from outside the valley, yes I know. That’s what you’ve told me - over and over and over again,” Erestor snapped.  
  
The office was small and rather cramped, chosen mainly for its dramatic view of the ravine with the cliff rising up to the moors, the spray from the waterfall with its dancing rainbows when the sun was at the right angle, and the stone bridge which had to be crossed by anyone entering or leaving Imladris. Erestor was working through a sheaf of papers, initialling pages and scribbling margin notes. He looked fed up with life. Glorfindel was leaning against the doorframe, watching him. “Are you reading those properly? I’m not sure I’d risk skimming anything Elrohir put in front of me.”  
  
“I’m reading every word, I read fast,” Erestor said without glancing up. “Most of these we discussed before, I just need to look at numbers and names really, and any part where the writing inexplicably grows small, scrunched or harder to read. Yes, I know all the tricks.”  
  
Glorfindel chuckled. “I wonder how? Be long? I thought we could try for an outside table at lunch, there’s no wind today.”  
  
“You need to go on ahead and get a table then, it’ll be packed,” Erestor told him, frowning down at something.  
  
“Or we could pick up food and go sit down by the river under the trees?”  
  
“Like a courting couple, you mean? Because that’s all you’ll find there.”  
  
“You’re not in a very good mood today, are you?”  
  
Erestor slapped another page down, signed it, sanded it, and put it neatly on top of its predecessor. “I have enough to do without fussing over all these details, so no, not in a very good mood.”  
  
Glorfindel pushed away from the door and crossed the room in a few strides to stand behind him sliding his hands under long, dark hair and resting them firmly on tense shoulders. Erestor tried to shrug him off and Glorfindel applied pressure, grinning to himself. “You sit still and read, I’ll do something about these knots. Hunching over this desk for hours isn’t good for you, your body hates it. It wants to be out on a horse or sitting on the grass next to the river.”  
  
Erestor turned his head in half circles to loosen his neck and sighed. “Yes, probably, but I wanted to get everything out of the way before the festival. There’ll be days of work afterwards, making sure it’s all been cleaned up, soothing everyone who feels their special interest crop or animal was adversely affected by the fireworks or those same courting couples you’ll find along the river now, who’ll be making a more determined effort in all sorts of inconvenient places then.”  
  
“Is that what courting couples do at harvest time?” Glorfindel asked in a low, amused voice. “You never told me. I’m sure I wouldn’t like to overlook any of the time honoured customs of this Age. I’ll see what I can do about it.”  
  
“You’re bad,” Erestor informed him. He sounded pleased about it. “And – are we courting? I’m not sure what it is we’re doing, but I thought courting was an altogether more innocent activity.”  
  
“Ha, yes, well my Aman morality has been corrupted by your evil influence, that’s why,” Glorfindel told him, fingers flexing and pushing steadily at shoulders, back, neck, looking for knots and signs of tension. “Would never have thought of doing such a thing before, it’s against the Laws and Customs.”  
  
“I hear you, overwhelmed with guilt, yes,” Erestor said dryly. “I shall remind you of this conversation tonight. Perhaps I should help you regain your lost innocence?”  
  
“No thank you, I’m sure it’s too late for that. Anyhow, I sleep badly without you. You wouldn’t want me to sleep badly, a kind hearted little person like you?”  
  
Erestor tried to turn and glare at him. “Enough of the little. I sometimes wonder if you’re not some kind of freak of nature. I think I told you, when I was young I read how the Noldor of Gondolin were small and slight of stature.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“Why would they be small? Do you think Turgon rounded up all the short people in Vinyamar and said come along with me, I have found the most awesome valley?”  
  
Erestor shook with laughter. “You’re spending far too much time up at the barracks. No, of course not, but it did rather imply there was some kind of natural selection going on there.”  
  
Pausing to stroke fingertips down Erestor’s neck and appreciate the little shiver this induced, Glorfindel considered. “You’ve heard about Thel. Do you think he sounds little and delicate?”  
  
“I never said delicate. I am – not all that tall – and I am far from delicate.”  
  
“Yes, I’ve noticed that. Anyhow, we were normal Noldor, mainly bigger built than the average Sindar… Why were we talking about this again?” He used the heels of his hands to put pressure along Erestor’s shoulder blades. “And sit still, you’re not cooperating.”  
  
“We were deciding if we were a courting couple or not after all this time.” Erestor picked up the next page and tried to sit still.  
  
“You don’t think we’re a courting couple? Then what are we, in your opinion?”  
  
“Um… two people who got to know each other and like each other very much?”  
  
“You sleep with all the people you like very much?”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous, I like Elrond and Celebrían would geld me if I tried to seduce him.”  
  
“Quite right too. So – only some of the people you like?”  
  
“Um …. Maybe only one person that I like?”  
  
“Just like?”  
  
“Like very much?”  
  
“I like Lindir very much.”  
  
Erestor swung round. “You had better not.”  
  
Glorfindel burst out laughing and Erestor joined in. “No, really, I don’t know what we are, but – it’s – very special and… something I never expected to experience again.” Erestor turned a little in the chair to look up at him, laughter fading, amber eyes growing serious. “I don’t think anyone’s ever really courted me before, not in the traditional ways, and you and I just grew into what we have. We were friends and then I turned round and …”  
  
“And I was having nightmares and you started sharing my bed and somehow we’ve never looked back, yes,” Glorfindel said gently, cupping Erestor’s face and running his thumb over his cheek, following the line of the bone. “And that was some time ago, so we’re meant to be an established, if discreet, couple, but every time I wake up and you’re there, it’s like the first time. So – not quite a courting couple, but still not settled and boring either. I could court you, if you’d like though. Never too late.”  
  
“Could we try celebrating the harvest in the traditional way at least?” Erestor asked with a slow, wicked smile, golden flecks of light dancing in his eyes. “Somehow I’ve never done that before.”  
  
“Too respectable to be dragged off into the bushes and thoroughly seen to?” Glorfindel asked with a grin. “I can remedy that.”  
  
“You’re feeling better about the festival, I see,” Erestor commented before turning reluctantly back to the last few pages he had to go through. “You must if you can even consider a bit of harvest carnality.’  
  
‘You always find such a lovely turn of phrase, don’t you? No, I’m not feeling that edgy sense of ‘something’s happening’ at the moment, you’re right. But – it’s not over, Ery. It’s just…waiting.”  
  
Erestor frowned at him. “Waiting?”  
  
Glorfindel nodded, suddenly grave. “Waiting. Brooding. Biding its time. Whatever it is. But it’s very far from over.”

\--oOo--

  
Síladon lay in bed watching the moon travelling slowly behind the leaves of the old tree. It was late and Nana had been asleep for a long time now. He was finding it harder to sleep, because soft in the dark, the ring seemed to be whispering to him. It had been going on for days now, low, indistinct but still there, sounding in a weird way like Ada’s voice but coming from a great distance and through layers of cloth. They had done an experiment like that in music once, muffling their voices and then removing layer after layer until they could hear true clarity again. He wasn’t afraid exactly, he could never be afraid of anything connected to Ada, but still, it was very strange.  
  
He thought of telling Nana about the ring and the voice, but he had taken it from her jewel box without permission, and there was no way to explain how it had moved from there to the pouch under his pillow. He wished that he could, he wanted someone to talk to about it. If Gelirgan had still been in Imladris, he could have gone to him; they used to share all their secrets, what there were of them, but Gelirgan was in the Undying Lands now, where there was no war and fathers always came home.  
  
Instead, he had boys like Tegior and Calareg for company. They were still teasing him about the clothes. Not Calareg, who had made a point of telling him they weren’t old clothes, just that he’d grown too tall and that he was glad for Síladon to have them. but the others found it worth a prod or two. Few days passed without at least one boy calling him Doggypants, softly but distinctly as he passed them. He sat near the girls now in the midday break; they took no nonsense from the boys, and he was more likely to be left alone there.  
  
 _‘We can find a way to make them stop._ ’  
  
The words were quite distinct, so clear that he jumped, looking instinctively across the room for Ada before he had a chance to be really scared. There was no one else there though, only Nana sleeping peacefully with her back to him. Cautiously he slid his hand under the pillow and rested it on the pouch. It felt – warm. He brought it out, holding it firmly in his hand and waited. Nothing happened for a few moments, then softly the voice that was so like Ada’s said, ‘ _There are ways to make sure they learn to respect you and stop making fun of you._ ’  
  
Síladon sat up, eyes wide and heart racing. He knew it couldn’t be Ada, not really, and yet – and yet it was his ring and might have some kind of connection with him, and the strange stone with its many, shifting colours was like nothing he had ever seen before. Perhaps – perhaps there was magic in the ring, some way for Ada to speak to him from wherever he was. Nana had explained about Mandos and the Halls of Silence, but he was a little unclear about how it all worked, just that elves’ voices were not stilled forever the way animals were. In any event, everyone knew Lord Glorfindel had died fighting a Balrog and been sent back. He had never heard of people speaking from the Halls, but it might be an adult thing that was not talked about around children.  
  
A sudden, compelling instinct made him put the pouch round his neck and then climb quietly out of bed and look around for his shoes and cloak. If Nana woke and asked, he could always say he wanted some water or thought he had heard a sound. He crossed the floor very carefully and quietly, shoes in hand, through to the main room and then, mouse-soft, out of the door and onto the grass outside the cottage. Here he paused to put on his shoes. It was very late, and looking up and down the lane he could see few lights. Faintly in the far distance he could hear singing coming from the Hall of Fire, which was on the other side of the trees and hard up against the cliff – they must be having a grand old time to be making so much noise, he could imagine Ada saying with a smile.  
  
He thought for a minute then went down the side of the cottage, stopping at the end, level with the bedroom, and looked up at the tree. He was very close to the river now, could even see the water moving, glinting in the moonlight. It was darker back here because of the trees and the river masked any other sounds for a time, but soon he heard it again, the insistent little voice that seemed to come from the pouch but also from far away, telling him there were always answers.  
  
Síladon reached up, loosed the drawstring at the neck of the pouch, then pushed and slid the ring up to where he could reach it and fish it out. It glittered in the palm of his hand with a strange dark light that had something to do with the moon and the shadow under the trees. He knew without being told that the way to hear what it – Ada – had to say was simple: he needed to put it on.  
  
He had it over the tip of his finger but then paused, frightened by the way the night seemed to change. It was as though something had come between him and all the usual sounds, even the river seemed further away, its rippling flow muted. The soft whispering of the trees faded and the air around him felt different, charged, listening. He wanted to go back to bed very badly, but even more than that, he wanted to talk to Ada, wanted to be able to ask where he was, how he could hear him, if Nana would be able to hear him… if it had hurt.  
  
He stood there, indecisive, until movement flickered at the very edge of his peripheral vision and he turned his head sharply, heart jumping in his chest. For a moment he thought one of the Houseless was coming for him, then he realised he was seeing Navinai and her young man, as Nana called him, Draugon the cobbler’s son, walking along under the trees towards him. Draugon’s arm was around her, and their heads were close together. They were too wrapped up in one another to have noticed him yet, but they soon would, and he had no excuse for being outside this late on his own. They might even insist on waking Nana to tell her.  
  
He dropped the ring back into the pouch and retraced his steps quickly and as quietly as he could manage, round the corner, back into the cottage, carefully closing the door. Leaning against it, he took his shoes off while listening for any hint that Nana was awake, but there was none. He crossed the living room and then the bedroom like a shadow, put his shoes and cloak back where they belonged, and got carefully into bed. Nana never stirred. Outside he could hear the faint murmur of voices as the young couple passed the cottage. Taking the pouch off, he put it back under the pillow. The ring felt heavy and was sullenly quiet.  
  
Somehow he felt almost relived things had gone no further. Something was – not right with the way Ada had spoken about making the boys respect him. Watching the moon sliding closer to the corner of the window, Síladon wondered if people changed in Mandos. If so, perhaps it would be better not to listen too hard to what Ada, if that voice really was Ada, was saying. He felt very small and very alone, and he was no closer to finding an answer when sleep finally claimed him.


	7. Chapter 7

“…what’s wrong?"  
  
Erestor was of an age to have his share of bizarre bedroom memories, but this was the first time someone had stopped in the act of nuzzling his stomach, shot out of bed and started dragging on the first clothes that came to hand. Glorfindel paused briefly in the act of trying to pull a tunic over his head that in fact belonged to his partner, glared at the offending garment and dropped it back on the chair. “Can’t you feel it? It’s like – like this giant hand hovering over us… you have to feel it. Where is my tunic, damn it?”  
  
“Hanging up where it belongs,” Erestor said absently, trying to split his concentration between Glorfindel’s startling behaviour and any hint of giant hands or spreading clouds. There was nothing, just his own sense of confused outrage. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Fin, I can’t feel anything.” Something struck him. “Except the trees are quiet – Findel, why are the trees quiet?”  
  
“Because they’re smarter than you? I don’t know, you know they don’t like my reborn state and won’t talk to me. Come on, we need to go outside, find it.”  
  
Glorfindel was heading for the door, barefoot and wearing leggings with an unbelted tunic. Erestor stopped blinking, got up hurriedly and pulled on the robe he had worn to work that day, then followed the rapidly receding figure with the swaying fall of golden hair. He soon had to jog to catch up and keep pace with Glorfindel’s longer stride.  
  
“Where are we going?”  
  
“Outside.”  
  
“Yes, but where…”  
  
“I don’t know, just outside. I’ll know when I get there.”  
  
“Yes, but…”  
  
“Hush, I’m trying to concentrate.’  
  
“I know, but…”  
  
“Erestor…”  
  
“I know, I know, shut up, I talk too much.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“No one has ever done that to me, you know. We’d better find something.”  
  
“Erestor.” Warningly.  
  
“Sorry. I’ll be quiet. No, down this way. There’s a door no one uses. It’s quicker.”  
  
The shortcut took them outside into a patch of garden filled with scented shrubs and with little climbing roses covering a trellis against the wall. A triangle of grass faced the stone path that went around the House and down alongside the river. The sky was clear, the moon high, and the stars big and bright in indigo darkness. Glorfindel stopped in the middle of the grass and stood looking up at the sky. A faint but unmistakeable glow surrounded him, a soft blue shimmer like starlight. Erestor joined him, this time needing no prompting to be silent.  
  
Faintly, an echo of an echo, he felt something unknown brush his skin, and the night took on a darker, more ominous tone. He stood still, feeling for the earth energy beneath his feet to ground him, and reached out with his mind. It was not a thing he did well, he thought he was too pragmatic to blend in with the unseen as Glorfindel could, but he was an elf and part of the fabric of Arda. If there was something wrong, he should be able to feel it.  
  
The darkness drew in around him, the air felt thick…  
  
“Damn!”  
  
Erestor physically jumped. “What?”  
  
“It’s gone. It’s like someone closed a door, shutting off the light coming out of a room. There’s nothing, nothing at all.” Glorfindel punched the empty air in frustration.  
  
Chewing on his lower lip, Erestor pushed back a loop of black hair and tilted his head slightly, an unconscious, listening gesture. “I can hear the trees again.”  
  
Glorfindel put an arm round his shoulders. “Any point in asking them what was wrong?”  
  
“Not much,” Erestor said, shaking his head. “They’ll just talk about badness, you never get much sense because they see the world so differently. ‘Bad, water darkener’ isn’t much of a clue, is it?”  
  
“Not a lot, no.” Glorfindel bent his head to breathe in the scent of Erestor’s hair. “Is that what they’re saying?”  
  
“Mm, something like that. I don’t think they know either, Fin, just that something was wrong and unsettled them.”  
  
“You believe me now? That there’s something wrong?”  
  
Erestor looked up at him, his head against Glorfindel’s shoulder. “I – there was something. I had to reach for it, which I never find easy, but – the night was very dark for a while. The only light was where you were.”  
  
“I’m sorry I told you to hush.”  
  
“I talk a lot, I know. It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone in my life I could babble away to, it goes to my head sometimes.”  
  
Glorfindel ducked his head to kiss him quickly. “I like it – usually.”  
  
“Do you want to go and tell Elrond?” Erestor asked him, turning in the curve of his arm and reaching to trace the line of his jaw with a finger.  
  
“It’s late,” Glorfindel said after a moment’s thought. “I’d not disturb him now. Tomorrow – maybe see if he says anything. I’m in charge of what’s left of the garrison, so the valley’s safety is as much my responsibility as his. I don’t want to run to him with problems I can solve myself.”  
  
“It’s my responsibility, too,” Erestor nodded. “Elrond might have a lot on his mind, but if there was a threat in the valley, surely he’d know about it?”  
  
“He’s looking outward at what might lie beyond our borders,” Glorfindel pointed out. “Something here, right on our doorstep, might be too close for him to notice.”  
  
“Yes, but what danger could threaten from here? There’s no one in all of Imladris who would betray us in any way or bring danger onto us. You can’t really believe there is, can you?”  
  
“No, it’s – something else. I’ll know it when I see it.”  
  
Erestor put an arm round his waist and leaned against him, his cheek to Glorfindel’s chest. “So if he says nothing, we’ll just stay alert, track it down ourselves? You needed more time, that’s all. I’m sure whatever it is, this is something we can sort out, without troubling Elrond over it.”  
  
Glorfindel nodded slowly. “Give it another day or two, see if it happens again,” he finally agreed. “For now, we have unfinished business upstairs.”

\--oOo--

  
The air felt the way it did before a storm, but the sky was clear and there was no suggestion of rain. It was as though summer had returned for a brief, final foray. Erestor took the long way round to work, walking slowly along open verandas and taking in the ravine almost as a guest might see it, appreciating the mist from the waterfalls, the rushing river, the grey rock of the cliff with its patches of greenery, the scent of Imladris, a mixture of pine, wood smoke and water.  
  
His destination was a sheltered balcony with a glorious view of the river, which was where he and Elrond had their morning meeting at this time of year. The order of business was one they had long since agreed to; there were two cups and a pot of coffee, and sometimes a few pastries if someone in the kitchen thought of it. They would drink coffee and talk and at the end of an hour Elrond would know if there was anything new of note happening in his valley, and Erestor would know what he wanted done about it.  
  
This morning everything was as normal, the coffee waited, there was a plate of biscuits, the cushions had been shaken out and freshly arranged, but instead of Elrond, his chair was occupied by a slender woman with light blue eyes and silver-gilt hair; Celebrían, Lady of Rivendell. Erestor raised both eyebrows but went first to pour himself coffee. After adding rather a lot of sweetener, he finally said, “Good morning, Celebrían. Elrond not joining us?”  
  
Celebrían looked at him over the rim of her cup. “Hello Erestor, I hope you slept well? You’re late, you know.”  
  
Erestor laughed softly and sat down. He had known Celebrían her entire life and thought he loved her best when she was pretending to be her mother. “Yes I suppose I am. I took a bit of a walk first this morning, just looking around.” He sipped the coffee. “We’ll have to start rationing this, it might be a while before we can trade that far south again.”  
  
Celebrían gave him an untroubled smile. “Yes. I thought you and Elrond might try tea in the mornings instead.” She had fallen in love with coffee while travelling in the south as a child with her parents and had a proprietary attitude towards their store of imported beans.  
  
Erestor grinned briefly. “Yes, share and share alike. Is there some reason Elrond isn’t here this morning? Nothing’s wrong, is there?”  
  
She shook her head and her hair shimmered as though with its own inner light. “No, nothing’s wrong, but he’s putting so much effort into keeping watch for us all that I offered to manage the general business of the day. I know you see to most of it, so that was just to make him feel better about taking a few days for himself. Harnessing Vilya for something this extensive takes time and energy and drains him.”  
  
Erestor nodded and breathed in the smell of the coffee, which he liked almost as much as she did. “That’s wise, yes. Did – anything happen to tire him more than usual? Last night perhaps?”  
  
Her eyes widened slightly. “Oh no, he just needs time to grow into the added burden. Such an unfair thing, to make him responsible for that ring. There must have been others…” Her voice drifted off for a moment. Celebrían loved her husband dearly and was open about her frustration at the toll the Ring of Air took on him even under normal circumstances where its main object was to preserve and protect their home. “Last night? Why? Is there something we should know about?”  
  
Erestor decided to be more cautious in his word choice than he might have with Elrond. “Not really, no. Just – Glorfindel had a strange experience. And the trees were unsettled by something.”  
  
Celebrían’s father was Sindar, she knew all about trees. “Trees are always unsettled, if it’s not one thing it’s another. Some elm’s roots are gnawed at and the next thing you know…”  
  
“I – don’t think it was something like that. And Glorfindel isn’t a tree and he said he felt something uncomfortable.”  
  
Celebrían put her cup down, looking a little concerned. “What was wrong, what made him uncomfortable?”  
  
“He felt that we were being threatened or watched by something…” Erestor stopped, recalling his original, sceptical reaction to that.  
  
“Oh, Elrond was a little worried this might happen,” she said at once. “The similarities to living in Gondolin – I can quite see that making him uneasy, who wouldn’t be? Especially with all those lives lost. This must be bringing back terrible memories. Would it help if one of us talked with him, do you think?”  
  
Erestor gazed into his cup, remembering the decision he and Glorfindel had taken last night. “Perhaps– wait till Elrond’s more rested and it won’t be just another burden? They can talk warrior to warrior, that might be good.”  
  
Celebrían looked relieved. “Yes, I think that would be best. Now that you mention it, there were a few moments last night when I also felt a bit unsettled, but I think we’re building for a storm. And Vilya is also quite intrusive sometimes. That might even be what was bothering Glorfindel.”  
  
“That might have been it, yes,” Erestor said, in no way convinced by Celebrían’s logic. He was now inclined to agree with Glorfindel that something was out of balance. It would be up to them to find out what it was and deal with it; Elrond had enough on his plate.

 


	8. Chapter 8

The sun had set behind the mountains, and in the centre of the field the great bonfire waited for the touch of flame. They were still bringing food down from the kitchens to already laden tables that were set up well away from the dancers’ circle around the fire. There was an altar under the trees, too, dressed with the symbols of the harvest: grain and fruit, vegetables and blossoms. Pride of place went to the three golden sheaves that represented Yavanna, Lady of Fruitfulness.  
  
Síladon stood a little apart from the growing crowd, drinking apple juice from a hollowed-out gourd. Nana had gone off to talk with someone, telling him to find his friends and try and enjoy the party. He had no one to meet, so instead he just watched the people come and go while everything took shape. It seemed a smaller, quieter gathering than last year. Nana had said there would still be fireworks, but only small ones so as not to draw the attention of any watchers in the mountains.  
  
Lord Elrond would light the fire as soon as the first stars appeared in the sky. He looked tired, but then he was responsible for keeping them all safe. Lord Glorfindel and the Seneschal were near the harvest altar and seemed to be arguing. Lord Glorfindel had his arms crossed over his chest and Master Erestor was gesturing widely, each movement of his head causing the strands of jet wound through his hair to shimmer and gleam. Síladon was fascinated by that, he would never have thought black stones would show up against such dark hair. Eventually Lord Glorfindel caught at the Seneschal’s hands, laughing, and said something and then they were both laughing, their argument forgotten.  
  
People were laying out blankets on the ground now, close enough to the fire but without running the risk of being trampled by the dancers. Most families had brought along their evening meal and were supplementing it from the spread offered by Lord Elrond’s kitchen. Nana had packed little cakes for them and some late summer grapes, and Síladon had charge of the basket. He set it down next to one of the trees and hoped that would be all right, she hadn’t told him where she wanted to sit yet.  
  
Last year Ada had been here, of course. He and Nana had dressed up a little for it, with garnets and pearls in their hair. Nana had worn her blue gown and Ada had used the lizard-shaped broach with the little green eyes that Síladon loved to fasten his good cloak. He had spread their blanket close to where Síladon had set the basket down this time and helped unpack the food – there had been more food then. While they were busy, he told Síladon about harvest in the mortal towns, and reminded him how Yavanna had left all the little seeds sleeping safe in the soil until the sun came to warm them, and how it was thanks to her that there was fruit and grain for the harvest and plenty to store up ahead of winter.  
  
Síladon squeezed his eyes tight shut for a moment. It hurt so much that Ada wasn’t there. He wanted to cry all the time, his chest hurt and felt tight, but he had no real tears, the hurt went too deep. Even when Lord Glorfindel came to tell them Ada wouldn't be coming home, there had been no tears, and after he had let Nana hug him while she sobbed, but he had looked dry-eyed past her shoulder, numbed by grief. More than anything, he wanted to go home, get away from all those happy, laughing people, go where it was quiet and he could be sad if he wanted. He knew there were many warriors who would not be coming home, and that he and Nana weren’t the only ones putting on a good face as she called it, but somehow that didn’t seem to make it any easier.  
  
“Aren’t you coming to sit by the fire?”  
  
Calareg had tried to be nice to him a few times since what he thought of as the Day of the Pants, those same pants he was wearing tonight. He supposed Calareg’s father had spoken to him. He was a captain, which by association gave Calareg a degree of authority with the boys, and from what Síladon had heard he talked a lot about honour and doing what was right. A bit like Ada. He looked down, pushing the basket more in line with a tree root with his foot. “Don’t think so. I’m waiting for my mother.”  
  
“Yes, but we’re just down there, you’d be able to see when she comes.” Calareg said and pointed towards a small group of boys who had claimed a good position near the serving table.  
  
Síladon recognised all his regular tormentors and shook his head without even thinking. “No thanks, don’t think so.”  
  
“But it’ll be fun. Gellon‘s mother’s serving, so we’ll get extras to eat, too.”  
  
Calareg was trying really hard to be friendly and it was making Síladon nervous because he wasn’t used to it. Previous bad experience though had taught him not to take such overtures at face value from anyone, and being in a public place gave him courage. “They can find someone else to laugh at tonight,” he said, backing off a little from Calareg. “I don’t want…”  
  
“Oh leave him alone, Calareg, he’s just being a baby.” Tegior had come up unnoticed while they were talking. He was wearing one of those fancy, embroidered bracers that were so popular with boys their age, the kind that Nana made really well, though he’d never asked for one because he would just have been teased for being such a bad archer. “We don’t need him, anyway. People will think we’re being paid to babysit.”  
  
“Don’t want to sit with you anyhow,” Síladon retorted. “Don’t want people to think I’m stupid like you. Anyway I’m going home now.”  
  
He knew he had gone too far even before Tegior gave him a shove that was so hard it knocked him right into the tree and the gourd with the remains of his apple juice flew out his hand. Síladon staggered to his feet and started off towards home, walking with as much dignity as he could muster to begin with before speeding up to a run. He didn’t run very fast either, another thing he wasn’t good at. Behind him, he heard Calareg calling, but he didn’t look back. All he wanted was to get home and close the door, shut out the world, the laughter, the fire, the food, and the memories of last year.

\--oOo--

  
“What’s going on with that lot over there?”  
  
So far everything was going exactly according to Elrohir's plan, but to be on the safe side Erestor was wandering around in a deliberately aimless manner, looking for potential problems. Glorfindel had fallen in step with him, trying to make it look casual. He now indicated a small knot of boys in an animated discussion that was just short of an argument. Erestor glanced at them, shrugged. “Boy stuff?” he guessed. “There are parents around, if it gets rowdy someone will step in. You might want to glare at them though, that should fix it.”  
  
“I’m frightening? Really?”  
  
“Of course you are, you killed a Balrog, you can probably do all sorts of terrifying things.”  
  
Glorfindel grinned briefly, then turned to scowl at the boys. One of them noticed, tugged at the next one’s sleeve, and within moments they had all stepped back and were trying to look nonchalant. He touched Erestor's arm briefly and then strode over, suddenly every inch the warrior Lord. “What is this all about? Tonight is a festival, not a war rally.”  
  
“We were just….”  
  
“Síladon wouldn’t come and sit with us and Calareg said it’s Tegior’s fault for teasing him,” a careful voice from near the back of the group volunteered, not prepared to lie to the legend.  
  
Glorfindel slanted a blond eyebrow. “Síladon…” He was good with names and faces. A moment’s thought offered up a small, closed face and very bright eyes. He frowned.  
  
“Are your fathers here tonight?” he asked in a deceptively pleasant voice. Worried looks were exchanged, a few heads nodded cautiously. He raked them with a penetrating look. "Anyone's father not here tonight?" he went on in the same tone. This time all the heads shook emphatically. “Then why,” he asked, and his voice snapped like a whip, making them jump, “are you teasing a boy whose father is not here tonight because he was lost during the fighting for Amon Sûl? You shame your families. Go and sort this out – no, not right now, after the fire’s lit. Your parents will look for you otherwise. Is this clear?”  
  
There were embarrassed nods of agreement and several murmurs of ‘Yes, sir,’ then a sturdy boy with red-brown hair stepped forward a pace. “I think he went home, sir. We’ll go and fetch him when the ceremony’s finished. I’m sorry sir, I know we were wrong.”  
  
“You see to it then,” Glorfindel said briskly. “Now go and settle down, they’re almost ready to begin.”  
  
With a little jostling and not much talking, the boys headed for the place they had claimed previously near the tables and Glorfindel returned to Erestor, who had been watching from a short distance, arms folded. His presence was probably not lost on the boys either; of the two adults, he was the one more likely to complain to their parents. “I see what you mean." Glorfindel said with a grin. "Why doesn’t glaring and a few choice words work on you then?”  
  
“Ha. I’ve been glared at by experts. I have been glared at by Gil-galad in a temper.”  
  
“And you smiled and twisted him round your little finger, I imagine.”  
  
“No – well, something like that. And Círdan, he’s never liked me.”  
  
“Oh, you both like to pretend that, yes.”  
  
“Galadriel?”  
  
Glorfindel considered. “That’s fair enough. If you can deal with her glaring at you, I don’t think I’d be too intimidating.” He put a hand on Erestor’s elbow as he spoke and they stopped to watch the musicians testing the direction of the wind so they could set up out of the smoke. “Everyone’s trying very hard, aren’t they?”  
  
Erestor nodded. “There isn’t a single family in the valley that hasn’t been touched by loss in some way, either a family member or a friend or neighbour. But yes, they’re trying very hard to make tonight special, lighten the mood a little, even though I doubt anyone is really in the right mood for a party.”  
  
“Elrond asked if I wanted to say a few words before he lit the fire. I hope I’ll strike the right note.” Glorfindel’s time in the valley had been very short as elves count it and he was still trying to feel out the flow and balance of its ways.  
  
Erestor moved closer, offering support. “I’m sure whatever you say will be well received. And your presence reassures people. I think they believe the Valar would never have sent you back into harm’s way. You’re a symbol that Imladris is still a safe place and that you will help keep it so.”  
  
Glorfindel glanced down at him, remembering another valley, fire against the sky and the bitter taste of defeat. “I hope they never have to reconsider that.”  
  
“Why should they?” Erestor asked him gently. “No one ever had cause to before.”  
  
Their eyes met, held. Glorfindel reached down and linked his fingers through Erestor’s and they stood quietly watching the activity around the fire. The wind had come up a little and Erestor glanced at the almost-dark sky. “I forgot my cloak,” he said. “I’ll need it later.”  
  
“I can go back and get it if you like,” Glorfindel offered.  
  
Erestor shook his head. “No, I’ll go up once the fire’s lit. I want to check they’ve left someone to watch the kitchen fires and that they’ll be relieved later in the evening. I’ll fetch it then."


	9. Chapter 9

Síladon ran till he was sure no one was following him, then slowed down and took the long way round home so he could walk alongside the river for a way – not too closely, Ada always told him not to do that because sometimes the sand fell away from the bank and it could be dangerous. The lane was deserted when he arrived, with no lights showing anywhere; everyone had gone to the field.  
  
He hesitated a bit before opening the cottage door. He wasn’t scared exactly, this was home after all. Nothing had ever hurt or threatened him here, not till the day they were told Ada wouldn’t be coming back. There was no reason to feel this sense of – something or someone waiting. Ada wasn’t there, not really. There had been that other thing that had happened, the voice, but he hadn’t heard it since then and had almost convinced himself he had imagined it. Nana said he was a dreamer; she always made it sound like a good thing to be.  
  
Pressing his lips together quickly, trying to push the memory away, he went in, leaving the door open so that he could see to light the lamp. When it was lit, he stood in the middle of the living room and looked around. Now that he was home, he wasn’t sure what to do next. Taking the lamp with him, he went through to the bedroom and lit the candle in there too, before going to sit on the bed, careful to keep his shoes off the cover.  
  
The room was dead quiet, even the river seemed subdued. The tree was making noise with its branches, but it wasn’t talking to itself tonight, it was just a tree in the night making cracking, creaking sounds, its leaves swishing and occasionally brushing the window. His insides hurt. He bent over, arms clasping his stomach, and tried to make it stop aching. He didn’t want to think about last year either, didn’t want to wish time back. He already knew that couldn’t work.  
  
He became aware of a strange, almost-familiar warmth near him, as though Ada had come to sit with him. He tried to pretend, but it wasn’t really Ada, he couldn’t turn and bury his face in Ada’s shoulder and cry and ask him why he couldn’t come home or tell him about Tegior pushing him. He couldn’t tell Nana about that either, she would worry, just as she would worry if she saw him crying, so it was better that he didn't.  
  
The soft voice was no part of the tenuous warmth, the nearness, but it was there anyway, a whisper of sound. He straightened and reached up to the windowsill where he had left the pouch and almost without thinking drew it open. The ring had surely been Ada’s, there was no one else it could have belonged to. For a moment he seemed to hear Ada say, _"Síladon, no!"_ but it was a feeling, not a sound, and he knew it couldn't be real – and then the ring was in his hand and suddenly anything was possible.  
  
 _“Put it on. Put it on so I can speak to you. You will hear me better if you wear it. See me too, but first there are things I need you to do.”_  The voice was distinct and no nonsense, and sounded so like Ada... Síladon hovered between obedience and the absolute certainty that this wasn’t happening. What he might have decided he couldn’t have said after, it was determined for him by a sudden knocking on the still-open door.  
  
“Síladon? Síladon, are you there?” It was Calareg’s voice, and he sounded worried.  
  
“We want to say sorry, Síladon.” The second voice was Tegior, sounding uncharacteristically subdued.  
  
 _“Don’t trust them,”_  Ada told him.  _“This is just a trick. You need to get away from them. If you don’t, I will have to go away. I won’t be able to see or speak to you again, ever.”  
_  
Síladon sat on the bed, eyes wide and frightened. He found he wanted – he really wanted - to tell Calareg about the ring and ask what he thought, but the others were there too and Ada was saying he’d leave if Síladon didn’t get rid of them. Rubbing his eyes he got up from the bed and went slowly through to the living room.  
  
“I don’t want to talk to you,” he told the waiting boys shakily before anyone could say anything. “I just want you to leave me alone. Go back to the festival.”  
  
“Síladon, don’t be like that. We want you to come with us,” Calareg said.  
  
Síladon shook his head and advanced towards the door. “I don’t want to. I want you to go away. I want you to leave me alone.”  
  
“Oh, he’s cracked. Leave him, Calareg, let’s go,” Tegior said, disgusted, but Calareg and one of the other boys shushed him hastily.  
  
“Come on, Síladon. It’s all right, really. We just want you to come sit with us. No one's going to tease you. We’ve got lots to eat, and…”  
  
 _“Go up to the main trail, past the barracks,”_ Ada whispered. Síladon thought they would all hear, but no one gave any sign of noticing the adult voice. _“Now, boy! Come!”_  
  
Ada never raised his voice to him like that. Síladon hesitated, caught between two realities: Calareg asking him to go back where there was light and music and people, and Ada telling him to go up the trail that led to the moorland above Imladris. The chance, no matter how unlikely, that this was really, truly Ada proved too much. He had no explanation to offer and so pushed past the boys in the doorway without another word, turned into the lane and once more began running.  
  
The boys had not been expecting anything like this. For a moment they stood staring at his vanishing back, then everyone began talking at once. Opinion was split between the idea that Síladon had lost his mind and would go and throw himself into the river and good riddance, and the suspicion that they would be in deep trouble from no lesser person than Lord Glorfindel should this happen, which would lead to someone - perhaps even Master Erestor - speaking to their parents.  
  
Finally Calareg exerted what remained of his authority. “Something's the matter with him, he never acts like this. I’ll go after him, he might get hurt or fall in the Bruinen by accident or … You go back and get someone, Tegior. See if you can find my dad, he always knows what to do. Go on, go get help.”

\--oOo--

  
The fire was burning high and the musicians had already set to work. Food was going around, people were gathered in groups of family and friends and the night was alive with goodwill. Erestor had been snacking each time he passed the tables and wasn’t particularly hungry, although he had arranged for a plate to be kept aside for him for later – his experience was that he looked for it midway through the night. He picked out extra this time, to share with Glorfindel.  
  
The twice-born warrior was deep in conversation with Elrond and Celebrían and it looked as though there would be little chance of him getting away for a while at least. Bringing in the harvest in the traditional way would have to wait its turn. As there was nothing that currently needed his attention, Erestor decided it was as good a chance as any to visit the kitchen and go fetch his cloak. The evening was growing cold and later the grass under the trees would be dew-damp.  
  
There was no one around as he made his way up the pasture then took the path that led to the village. Everyone was at the festival, and the houses were in darkness. The only light came from the lanterns lighting the cross streets, but even so he could see well enough to take his habitual short cut to the main street. There were soft, chicken sounds as he passed too close to a coop, and a cat came out of a patch of garden to stare at him, otherwise nothing moved. Suddenly the silence was broken by the sound of several pairs of rushing feet, and a boy's voice raised to call out, "This way, it's quicker."  
  
He came out of a side lane just as a group of boys, the same ones Glorfindel had spoken to earlier, came tearing down the street towards him. His first thought, based on long years of experience, was that they were up to no good. He stepped out in front of them, raising his voice to demand crisply, “Get over here and explain yourselves, please.”  
  
As intended, it stopped them dead in their tracks. For a moment they seemed collectively poised for flight, then they crowded round him, tripping over each other’s words, everyone trying to explain at once. Erestor let them run on – they were exactly as he remembered the twins at that age – and when they showed signs of slowing down, pointed to the one who seemed the most articulate. “You – Tegior, yes? What’s going on?”  
  
The boy stood a little straighter and took a deep breath. “Sir, it’s about Síladon. We went to apologise as Lord Glorfindel said we should and he was acting really strange…”  
  
“Really, really strange,” someone else cut in for emphasis, subsiding as Erestor gave him the kind of look that had reduced experienced courtiers to stuttering silence back in Lindon in the old days.  
  
“… and then he just ran off, and Calareg said we should go get help, fetch a grown up, while he went after him. So we were going to fetch one of our fathers or Síladon’s mother or... or whoever we could find.” He stumbled to a halt, looking very young and worried.  
  
“Well, you’ve found me,” Erestor told him practically. “While I see what's going on, you need to find Síladon’s mother, tell her he seems not to be well. Are any of your mothers friendly with her?”  
  
There was some muttering and the exchange of uncertain looks. “Calareg’s mother, maybe,” someone suggested.  
  
“Ask her to come along too, then,” Erestor said. A captain's wife should be a steadying presence. “I’ll go and find them. Which way did they go?”  
  
“They took the river path,” Tegior told him. “The one that leads up past the House.”

\--oOo--

  
Síladon moved as fast as he could, worried they might follow him and guess where he was heading; they all knew the main trail was out of bounds and might tell someone at the House. He kept to the shadows of the paved river path beyond the village that led past Lord Elrond’s House and ended a ways beyond the bridge. The big house was quiet, because most people were at the festival, but there were lights burning to welcome the residents home later. Even though he was upset he remembered to be careful, knowing there would be people around, kitchen staff and others whose duties had kept them from the fire and the dancing. He could only hope they would not be watching the bridge.  
  
Crossing the Bruinen was easy, even though the bridge had no handrail and the river raced by beneath it, hurrying from one waterfall to the next. The night was bright from the moon, but he had never before gone up the steps carved into the cliff facing the House as this was an adult occupation. He knew it was safe because the warriors used them and even his own mother did when she went up to the barracks, but they were steep and it still felt scary. The ring was quiet now, a heavy, waiting weight around his neck. He counted steps as he climbed - eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen - to drive out fear and make himself feel less alone.  
  
The steps ended high above the river, and he followed the track leading to where the barracks were built into the rock, and the stables beyond for the warriors’ horses. There was a ladder fastened to the rock where the steps ended, which his parents had told him about. It would have taken him up to the caves where they cured meat and skins; he saw the rungs were far apart and wondered how anyone could climb them carrying meat or pelts. He knew he had to be quiet now, not even breathe too loudly. He had no idea why Ada wanted him to come where there was open space and eyes to see him if he wasn’t very careful. There would be soldiers on guard and watchers on the trail, too, and he could only hope they wouldn't expect someone his size to be there.  
  
He slipped past the barracks, moving like smoke, then down the side of the stables, hearing the soft snuffling sounds the horses made as they settled for the night. It was not really terribly late, it just felt like it because everything was so still. He wished he could stay with the horses, they felt nice and warm and safe, not afraid of anything, but Ada said up to the trail, so that was where he had to go. This was completely forbidden to anyone without permission, in case someone wandered off onto the high ground and a bad person was watching, but there were no bad people around, just him. He supposed he was bad because he knew what he was doing was wrong.  
  
The trail above Imladris twisted and zigzagged deliberately so that an enemy would be slowed down, should anyone penetrate that far into the ravine. It was narrow and the stones were loose in places, but the centre was well looked after because no one wanted to risk the horses’ legs. There were trees here, but they were not friendly trees, they were silent, watching him pass in a knowing kind of way. The sky was clear above him, and he could see the moon if he turned to look back over his shoulder. The valley lay grey and dark and strangely empty below him, and this became even more unsettling as he moved higher. As if no one lived there, as if Nana was gone, too.  
  
“Where must I go, Ada?” he whispered, clasping the pouch. “How far?” But the ring was silent. He slowed down, really looking around him now. The wind was stronger up here and the shadows were strange and inky dark. There were clumps of reeds and strange little rushes and a horrible feeling of eyes on his back. He was growing very frightened, but he was stubborn too; he would keep walking until Ada told him he could stop.  
  
The air changed. There were no words to describe it, it felt as though he had stepped through a curtain, an invisible veil that tingled and shivered his skin with its strangeness as it rippled past him. After that the light looked different, harsher, the trail had less colour, and the valley when he looked down through the trees was eerily indistinct. Finally what guided the ring roused at last.  
  
 _“We are beyond the Watcher’s gaze. Now, put on the ring. You must wear it or you will be unable to see me. Keep walking towards the entrance, and be careful of the guards. I will be there, waiting for you.”_


	10. Chapter 10

The wind gusted around Síladon’s small form, tangling his hair and making him clasp his arms closer to his sides to try and keep warm. It had a lonely, high-pitched whistle, quite unlike the way it sounded at home in the valley. The night was dark and frightening, like a bad dream, and the moon looked wrong. Nonetheless, obediently he took the ring out of the pouch.  
  
“Síladon, what are you doing?”  
  
He froze, literally unable to breathe for a moment, the ring just over the tip of his finger. Spinning round, he gaped at Calareg hurrying up behind him. Somehow in the strangeness of the night he had completely forgotten he might be followed. “Leave me alone,” he hissed, remembering just in time to keep his voice down in case someone from the barracks heard. The words somehow carried less conviction out here than they had down at the cottage surrounded by the safe and familiar.  
  
 _“Put on the ring! Now!”_  Ada’s voice grated and scratched with urgency. Síladon had finally stopped trying to understand. All he could do was cling to the idea that this was Ada, his Ada who had ridden away with the fighters and not come back, his Ada who he missed so much and who always knew the right thing to do. Why else would he be up here on the high trail in the middle of the night, even though he knew Nana would be really, really cross with him? He closed his eyes and slid the ring fully onto his finger. It was very loose and he had to close his hand into a fist, but it was there.  
  
“I’ve got it on Ada, I’m wearing it,” he breathed. As the words left his lips, the strange stone in the ring began to glow with a cold, green light and the world around him changed. An unearthly yellow-green suddenly outlined the trees, the tips of the blades of grass, even the stones along the trail, while the moon sailing high above cast an eerie yellow luminosity over everything. He could not see the valley at all, as though there was nothing down below the trees. Fear bubbled up inside of him, twisting his stomach. More than anything on Arda right now he wanted Nana.  
  
Calareg had reached him now. “Who are you talking to? There’s no one here, just me. Come on, we’re not allowed here.”  
  
 _“Get rid of him,”_  Ada snarled,  _“he’ll spoil everything. Deal with him and then come to me. I am waiting for you where the trail reaches the high land.”_  
  
“I told you to go away!” The words came out thin and high, and the wind pounced on them, whipping them up and carrying them away.  
  
Calareg, the son and grandson of warriors, stood his ground. “No, I’m not going away. You would get in terrible trouble for being up here, you know we’re not allowed to in case we’re seen by one of Angmar's spies. We have to go back down right now. It’s cold and dark and – and we’ve crossed the line. Adar showed me where it was when he took me out with the patrol a while ago. You can feel how the air changes on the trail. That’s Lord Elrond’s line of protection, it stretches right round the valley…”  
  
“I don’t care, I don’t want to hear about what you did with your father,” Síladon finally managed to get out. “I’m not going back. I have – I have a thing I need to do. For  _my_  father.”  
  
“Your father couldn’t have sent you to do something up here in the middle of the night,” Calareg exclaimed. “He’s de… he hasn’t come back yet.”  
  
Síladon rounded on him. “He’s not dead! He's - he's waiting at the end of the trail,” he insisted, still trying to keep his voice down so they wouldn’t be heard. Even to his own ears, he sounded shrill and unconvinced. “Now will you just – go away. We don’t want you here. This is nothing to do with you. Just - go!”  
  
Almost crying, he emphasised the words by pushing Calareg hard. Although bigger and more solidly built, Calareg staggered back, more surprised than anything else. “Have you gone crazy?” he yelped. “Of course he’s not there. Come on, Síladon, you’re…”  _scaring me_  “… not well. We need to go home.”   
  
 _“I told you to get rid of him,”_  Ada rasped. He sounded angry, more angry than Síladon had ever known him, and the ring felt ice cold against his skin, so cold it burned. Further up the trail, half obscured by branches, a figure began materializing, a slow glide of light and shadow over emptiness.  
  
“Yes he is,” Síladon told Calareg in a deathly calm voice that came from a place beyond terror. “He’s there. Right there. Look.”  
 

\--oOo--

Erestor sought the main street, listening for any hint of voices or footsteps, but except for the waterfall the night was quiet. It was almost like walking through a ghost village. He hurried along the river path, trying to think where two small boys might go after dark. He reached the House without incident and slowed, looking around, but there was nothing out of place. Hoping the boys had gone inside, he went in through the main entrance and hailed Gellon, whose duty it was that evening to watch the door.  
  
“No, sir, not seen a soul since the dinner bell,” the elf told him in a very sure voice. He had been sitting comfortably with a plate of food and a cup of wine, but hastened to his feet when he realised who was coming up the steps.  
  
Erestor made an impatient sound. “Two boys. About this high. You’re sure?”  
  
He got a blank look in return. “No, Master Erestor. Like I said, no one’s come in here since before dinner.”  
  
Erestor gave the river path a hard stare and decided he might as well go and fetch his cloak while he decided what to do next. There was a lamp burning in their rooms – his rooms really – and the fire was built up and ready for lighting. Erestor chose one of his warmer cloaks, closed a window against the night because the air felt damp, and tidied his hair, all the while trying to think where to look next. He had half a mind to leave matters for the parents to sort out, but the boys had been so adamant that Síladon was in some kind of trouble, and for Thavron's sake he felt impelled to see for himself.   
  
The room was growing really cold and he had the strangest sensation of being watched. He put it down to not having eaten properly since breakfast, coupled with the small unsolved mystery that had fallen into his hands. Also, the wick must have been old, because the light the lamp shed was dim and failed to reach the corners of the room. Shrugging Erestor gave a final pat to his hair and left, closing the door firmly behind him.  
  
He was already on the steps when the doorwatch called him back.  
  
“You said you were looking for two boys?” Gellon asked him. “No one came in here, but now I recall seeing them go past towards the bridge. Not together, looked as though the one was following the other. Put it down to some kind of game…”  
  
Erestor didn’t stay to hear more. In a swirl of midnight blue cloak and black hair he was back down the steps and striding towards the bridge that was the first stage of leaving Imladris. There were a few garden spots with benches and the like along the way, but he dismissed them; it was too dark for either child to have reason to stop there. When he reached the bridge he spent a moment peering into the darkness of garden and trees and sheer rock, then considered the view across the ravine. As he hesitated, a voice in his head that was not truly in his head said one word:  _“Up.”_  
  
There was no one in sight. Telling himself that imagination was getting the better of him again, Erestor nonetheless crossed the bridge on swift feet. He had no idea why the boys would choose to break the basic rule that no child should climb the steps up to the barracks without an adult in attendance, but it was less likely that they had doubled around and gone back to the House.  
  
At the top of the steps, Erestor stopped to listen again, but the night yielded nothing unusual. He looked back over the water at the House, lights flickering cheerfully in windows and spilling out the open door, then considered his immediate surroundings. The barracks was a remnant of early Imladris, built to hide light or habitation from prying strangers, with the result that the gloomy structure set into the cliff seemed utterly deserted. He found it hard to believe the boys would have gone further than this. Either they were in the stables or he had somehow missed them amongst the trees and bushes along the way. He had already moved back a few paces towards the steps when a voice said very clearly,  
 _  
“Save my son, Master Erestor. Please.”  
_  
There was still no one there; the shelf of land in front of the barracks was empty. Slowly Erestor became aware of a presence, someone whose personal energy though subtly changed was still familiar. He stayed very still, waiting. For long minutes nothing happened. The wind whispered through silent trees and the river danced below him, leaping down falls and throwing up clouds of spray. Then someone pushed him in the small of the back, hard, in the general direction of the stony track leading up past the stables. Erestor raised an eyebrow, but set off at a brisk jog, sensing it might be wise to save the questions for later.  
  
The track wound up between slabs of rock, curved amongst trees, the twists and turns deliberate. There were watch stations overlooking it in places, and he made a note to have Findel ask later why he wasn't stopped. He supposed they were on the alert for potential intruders, less concerned with someone leaving the valley. Whatever the reason, he seemed no more visible than the being who currently kept pace with him. Erestor was a child of the First Age, no longer young as elves reckoned such things, and it took a lot to make him nervous, but he was finding this walk above Imladris in search of missing children with one of the Houseless for company unsettling. The trees seemed to share his mood; they said nothing, watching him pass with an unnatural stillness.  
  
He was on the stretch just before Vilya’s invisible boundary around Imladris, their final line of defence, when the trees suddenly roused in a chorus of inarticulate alarm. He paused between one step and the next, trying to make sense of the jumbled phrases, strongly aware of the presence beside him. The trees were warning one another of ‘thing that rots roots’, and for once he took them seriously. He could feel it too, something very dark rousing close at hand, making the air tingle unpleasantly. Beside him pale light flickered urgently.  
  
“Yes, I know,” he said, not waiting to be shoved again, and passed through Vilya’s defensive line into the world beyond, where the moonlight was always harsher for the first few minutes and the wind’s bite sharpened. Moments later he heard voices up ahead, carried to him by the wind that whistled off the moorlands and between rocks. He tried to listen, even though his half-seen companion had passed him and was leading the way now. Then a sentence carried clearly, and another, and he started to run towards the sound and towards a sense of unrelieved dread, the source of the trees' distress.  
  
"Let go of me! I have to go to him, he has to touch me. He needs to hold me so he can see through my eyes."  
  
“That's not your Ada, Síladon. Look at it.  _Look at it!_ '  
  
He rounded a bend and found the boys standing directly in front of him in the middle of the trail. Almost sobbing, Calareg had hold of Síladon’s arm and was shaking him, pointing ahead while Síladon tried to pull free. Facing them loomed a half-materialised shape, tall and terrible, the face obscured by an ornate helmet, a crown of white flame flickering about its head.   
  
Every instinct Erestor possessed screamed at him to get back among the trees, out of sight. He ignored it and sped up, trying to ignore memories of Gil-galad charging Sauron and how that had ended. Eyes that were not eyes left the children and fastened on him and he remembered he was unarmed. Bending he picked up a rock. The apparition resolved in a blaze of greenish light and dank air, and now he could make out long robes trimmed with fur, a full cloak, a sword belted about the waist, a long, gloved hand reaching out towards him.  
  
“Take it off. Síladon,  _please_  take it off! That’s what’s bringing it, that ring.”  
  
Erestor risked briefly looking away from the apparition to see what the boys were doing. Síladon was standing so still he seemed hardly to breathe, staring at the fully-realised figure in horror, then with a frightened whimper he threw something down onto the stones at the side of the trail and stumbled back from it, closer to Calareg.  
  
Light blazed from the being, painting the night a vivid green, and the sound that issued from it was like nothing any elf had ever made, a shrieking, skittering howl of rage and frustration, rising and falling like the baying of a wolf. A buzzing, scratching noise began, rising in pitch and intensity, the light started flickering blindingly, then as Erestor was forced to put his hands over his ears to block out the onslaught, light and sound abruptly vanished.  
  
There was a moment of stunned silence, broken finally as Síladon reached out a desperate hand, calling, “Ada,  _Ada!_ ” Then he sank to his knees and the tears started, great, aching sobs drawn from his soul.  
  
Calareg was trying ineffectually to pat him when Erestor reached them. He squeezed the boy's shoulder then dropped down to kneel on the stony trail, taking the sobbing child into his arms and murmuring, “Sshh, shhh, it's over, it's all right now." The words were unimportant, what mattered was his tone. Looking up at Calareg he said, "You did well, really well. I can think of any number of warriors who would have turned and run for their lives in the face of what just happened. Now - I need you to find whatever he was holding. Don't touch it, just show me where it is.”  
  
He continued talking quietly to Síladon while Calareg searched around in the moonlight and the trees chattered on in the background. They were like parrots Erestor thought, irritated without any real cause. Gil-galad had owned two parrots, a gift from one of the southern city states, and Erestor had never understood what all the fuss was about, finding them ill-tempered and raucous. It didn't take Calareg long to find what he was looking for, the greenish light was fading from the ring but had not yet totally vanished. Using the tip of his boot he pushed it over to within Erestor’s reach. “Here sir, it's a ring.... “  
  
Keeping his arm firmly around Síladon, Erestor studied the ring carefully first before picking it up. He turned it in his hand, studying the workmanship. “This is from Ost-in-Edhil, from the great days just before the end,” he told Calareg, making his words easy and calming. “I think his grandfather was a smith there, trained by Celebrimbor himself. This looks like one of the lesser rings, those that Sauron helped them experiment with before Celebrimbor made the Three. A minor ring, but deadly in the wrong hands. You were a good friend here tonight, not just to Síladon but perhaps to the whole valley.”  
  
Calareg came to sit on his other side, away from the ring, and put his hand on Síladon's back. ''It wasn't his fault, sir,' he told Erestor earnestly. 'He – he really thought his Ada was talking to him, wanting to touch him... I saw something different, but he only saw it clearly when I shouted at him - it broke the spell or whatever it was. It wasn't his fault.'  
  
Erestor waited while Síladon’s sobs faded into tired, hitching breaths and sniffing. Unless he missed his guess that had been the Witch-king himself and they needed to raise the alarm, but Elrond would already be aware something was very wrong, as would Glorfindel who had known it from the start. He had no idea how much or how little the Witch-king had learned, but it was time to seal the entrances and stay quiet, hoping that once again the enemy's eye would pass over them.

That was work for other hands, he thought, stroking Síladon’s hair. Right now he was content to wait while a father stole a last few precious moments close to his son.   
  
He watched light glimmer and dance in the darkness under the trees for a while, then whispered, “I’ll look after him. You have my word.” Briefly there was a touch of mind to mind, then the glimmering drew together into a point of soft white light which hovered bright enough to outline the dark shapes of the trees before it slowly contracted and faded from sight. With his son safe, Thavron could finally answer the call home.

 


	11. Epilogue

The moon had set behind the mountain before Glorfindel finally came to bed. Erestor was asleep, so he moved quietly around the room divesting himself of clothing and unfastening the tight braids he preferred for riding. Getting carefully into bed, he lay down, drawing the covers up over his shoulder. Moments later he sat up again, annoyed.  
  
“Hey. Give me my pillow, you.”  
  
Erestor made sleepy, disapproving sounds and sighed deeply as Glorfindel unceremoniously yanked a pillow out from under his head. “Yours is nice. Smells like you, makes me happy,” he complained, holding onto the dislodged bedcovers.  
  
Glorfindel was unimpressed. “Don’t be a victim, I’m not that gullible. You just like your comfort. Get yourself a second pillow, leave mine alone.”  
  
“Oh no, then it’d become a habit.” Erestor rolled onto his back and yawned. “Sleeping every night with two pillows is very bad for your neck. Couple of nights a month won’t hurt though.”  
  
Glorfindel punched the feathers back into shape and lay back down. “Gives you a double chin, two pillows.”  
  
Erestor digested this in silence. “Where did you hear that?” he asked finally.  
  
“Oh – somewhere. Anyhow, just keep that in mind next time you want to help yourself.”  
  
“Mean.” Erestor turned on his side and moved closer. Glorfindel reached an arm round him and they took a few moments to get settled together. Erestor’s voice was midnight soft in the gloom. “How far did you ride? Right down the valley?”  
  
“Went up to the top of the cliff and had a look around – there was nothing in sight, but who knows how much longer that’ll last for. Then we rode down to the Ford, and I spoke to the guards there. There’ll be four on duty now while two sleep instead of the other way round.”  
  
“Mm. Elrond’s watching too. If they’re encouraged by this to come exploring, they won’t take us by surprise.”  
  
“No, they won’t. Those little trails that wind along down here are being sealed too. They’re working by moonlight, it’ll be done by morning. So we just have to concentrate on the cliff and the ford.”  
  
“No more goat tracks. Poor goats will be upset.” Erestor yawned again and snuggled closer, his arm warm around Glorfindel’s waist.   
  
“You’re still cold, come close. They weren’t happy with me telling them to douse the bonfire, but the wind’s too strong, they’d need to finish early anyhow – too close to the trees.”  
  
“Ah. I saw it was out, wondered if you ordered it.”  
  
“I just thought it was tempting fate to signpost our whereabouts tonight.”  
  
Glorfindel nodded, touched his lips to the top of Erestor’s head. “True. Are the boys all right?”  
  
“No, but they will be in time,” Erestor said soberly. “It was a terrifying experience, and then to be faced with Elrond straight after… “  
  
Glorfindel grinned briefly at a memory. “Elrond angry isn’t a good experience at the best of times. How did this happen? I couldn’t stay to hear the whole story, I was already getting watchers up on the moor when you brought them to the House.”  
  
“Yes, I know.” Erestor turned onto his back again with a gusty sigh, remaining in the curve of Glorfindel’s arm. “There was a ring, one of the lesser rings they made in Ost-in-Edhil, quite similar to the one I had. Síladon’s grandfather was a smith there, working directly under Celebrimbor. Those rings were all meant to have been destroyed, but Gil-galad always suspected there were still a few out there. He said people couldn’t resist an heirloom with a dark history... Anyhow, Síladon’s mother had no idea what it was, just that it belonged to her husband’s family and was left behind when they sailed to Aman – I assume they knew better than to try crossing with something made under Sauron’s tutelage.”  
  
“And Síladon found it.”  
  
“Yes. Meldis says she has no idea how that happened, but she never realised it was dangerous, just strange, so… Anyhow, he found the ring and kept it - and then something claiming to be his father started talking to him through it, telling him to climb up to where the trail exits onto the moors and put it on.”  
  
“Making himself visible to Angmar and showing him the road in?”  
  
“Precisely. But Calareg followed and saw what was really beckoning him on and made him take the ring off. He was nowhere near the exit, and I – I think it needed to touch him first, so in the end no real harm was done. But it was close.”  
  
Glorfindel lay listening to the wind and the soft sound of Erestor breathing beside him. Eventually he said, “They saw the Witch-king?”  
  
Erestor made an indecipherable sound. “We all did. Not a good moment.”  
  
Startled, Glorfindel leaned up to look down at him. “Are you all right?”  
  
“Of course I’m all right. Running at a spectre with a stone is probably too stupid to confess, but otherwise – yes, I’m all right. “  
  
“You…? Right. No questions. I’ve done stranger things.” He lay down again, pulled Erestor closer in a half-conscious need for reassurance that he was, indeed, all right. Erestor turned to face him again, head in the hollow of his shoulder. “What did he look like?”  
  
“A wraith with a crown of white flame and the build and garb of a mortal.”  
  
“A wraith…?”  
  
“One of Sauron’s Undead. Galadriel suspected as much.”  
  
“I know. So in a way this near-disaster did us a favour, we know more now than we did before.”  
  
“That’s what I told Elrond before he could start shouting. That poor child meant no harm, he was just missing his father, it made him easy to manipulate.”  
  
He thought about it. “So when I sensed something wrong at their cottage…”  
  
“Yes. The ring must have been quiescent while you were there, so you sensed something wrong without being able to pinpoint it. “  
  
“Where is the ring now? With Elrond?” While he spoke he worked Erestor’s hair loose where it was trapped between them.  
  
“He took it to the forge to smelt down, and Celebrían went with him. She’s not her mother’s daughter for nothing, they left arguing about the right chant for smelting a magic ring. Between them, it’ll be properly unmade.”  
  
“Good.” Glorfindel played with the dark silky hair for a while, then said quietly, “There were so many fatherless children after the Tears, too – I’ll stop past there in a few days as I planned, see how the boy’s doing.”  
  
“I’ll come with you,” Erestor told him, “I seem to have promised his father I’d keep an eye on him.”  
  
“Sorry, what?” The wind gusted and huffed outside the window and somewhere Glorfindel could hear a door banging. He had a transient thought that it was very good to be at home and in bed on nights like this.   
  
Erestor made no reply to begin with, then Glorfindel felt his head move, a silken shake in the dark. “I’ll tell you in the morning,” he said sleepily before turning on his side, his back to Glorfindel’s chest, snuggling into warmth. Glorfindel put an arm around him, aware as always of how well their bodies fitted together. Erestor got his pillow settled, then rested his hand over Glorfindel’s. “I’d rather you not accuse me of having an overactive imagination till I’m awake enough to defend myself.”

Too wide awake to sleep, Meldis sat on her bed with the mending she’d not had time for during the day. The wind was howling around corners outside, but she had found the latest gap and plugged it and tonight the cottage was once more warm and snug. Síladon was sound asleep in his bed under the window, covers piled high. Lord Elrond had said to keep him warm as shock could take hold hours after the event, so she had given him hot, sweet tea to drink and added one of the heavy winter blankets to his bedding.  
  
She still had no idea what to think about it all. She had known there was something unwholesome about that ring, but not that it could do harm. And she was certain Thavron had known no more about its past than he told her. As she explained hesitatingly to Lord Elrond, had she so much as suspected its true nature, she would have handed it over at once. To her surprise, Master Erestor had supported her and told Lord Elrond it was no one’s fault, or to blame the Dark One should he need a culprit.  
  
Síladon had sat quiet through the interview with their lord, answering questions in a small, flat voice which had worried her and which Master Erestor had told her was due to shock. The seneschal had been more than kind, walking them home afterwards, even carrying Síladon when it was clear his legs were finding the short journey heavy work. Even after the horror of the night’s revelations, she found this last a matter of some wonder.  
  
When the boys came rushing up to tell her there was ‘something wrong’ with Síladon, Calareg’s father had gone with her to see what was amiss. Later, being a captain, he was more at ease with Lord Elrond than she was and had known which questions to ask, looking at his son with quiet pride when Master Erestor explained how Calareg had saved them all from disaster. Calareg had spoken up at that, to say how none of it was Síladon’s fault and he was sorry they had teased him. One small note of pleasure that had come out of all this was Calareg’s firm commitment before they parted company to come round on the morrow to spend time with Síladon. He seemed a true friend, and just the kind her son needed.  
  
One other thing had happened, but not something she felt led to share with anyone now or possibly ever. While they had been looking for Master Erestor and the children, she'd had the strangest sense of Thavron’s presence. It felt exactly as it had in the past when he was away from home and thinking of her, the marriage bond making their fëar resonate one to the other. It was very brief, but for those minutes it was as though her husband stood close beside her, offering his strength and support as he always had. The feeling passed shortly before they met Master Erestor and the boys coming down the trail, but instead of the empty greyness that had filled his place in her heart, she felt a sense of peace, of work well done. She knew then that Thavron was really gone, but also that a part of him remained with her, a little boy with hazel eyes and a sweet, shy smile.  
  
Shaking out a pair of Thavron’s trousers, she looked from them to the sleeping child in the bed across the room and nodded slowly, a smile touching her lips. The fabric was good and there was plenty of it. She reached for her scissors. These and one or two tunics could easily be cut down and reused, Síladon would have good winter clothes after all. She would mourn Thavron with a deep, quiet grief, but it was true that for their kind such partings were for a time only, and some day beyond the sea she believed they would meet again in joy and love. But all that lay far in the future. For now, she had a son to raise and work to do.   
 

~*~*~*~*~

Finis

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**Author's Note:**

> Artist: Alex (aka chrunchy_crunck) Many thanks for your lovely artwork.  
> Beta: the long-suffering Red Lasbelin.
> 
> Written for the LotR Community Big Bang


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